


I Dream Of You, It Keeps Me Safe

by thenleavetheband



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Blowjobs, Drunken Shenanigans, Harry's a pal, Harry/Nick is the beginning, Hate to Love, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Zayn Malik/Louis Tomlinson, Pining, Swearing, but then things happen, like loads, oh and there's a stupid amount of swearing, silly boys with lots of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 21:57:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2204511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenleavetheband/pseuds/thenleavetheband
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Nick pissed him off and they were so so different, and Nick was annoying and he pissed Louis off and a whole other load of logical and understandable reasons, namely that, he pissed Louis off. </p><p>And he was Harry’s. Number fucking one on top of the list- Nick was Harry’s. </p><p> </p><p>(Louis gets nightmares. Harry and Nick are having sex. It's not that Louis wants to have sex with Nick, it's just, he wants to have sex with Nick)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Dream Of You, It Keeps Me Safe

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyy, um- None of this is real. Whilst the people involved are real people, the events are not, and this is purely fiction that I completely made up. I really don't mean any offense by it at all. 
> 
> I have literally never done this before, so it may be awful and I've only really just got into the fandom so it's not been beta-ed so any mistakes of any nature are mine. I've never listened to Nick's show before so I hope characterisation is okay and really I just don't even know what I'm doing. I don't even fully understand this website, even though it's totally fab, technology is so baffling.

Louis blinks sleepily at the television, and then takes a moment to frown at the screen. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and counts to ten, before lowering his hands and frowning at the screen again. He must have rolled onto the remote as he dozed because what is quietly playing is definitely not Gogglebox. It’s some sort of reality T.V. show, he’s pretty sure, but one that he’s never seen before which is an impressive feat in itself. The thing that’s thrown him off, has him even more groggy and confused than his current sleep deprivation has accounted for, is that the people on it are definitely not speaking English. There is absolutely no way that counts as English. He scowls at the telly, because really, how dare it play an interesting but definitely non-English show and drags himself off the sofa and into the kitchen he shares with Harry.

‘Hungry, hungry, in my tumbly.’ He half sings half yawns, a silly little tune that he used to coo into his sisters ears when they were still little enough to be fed from a bottle. Originally, it had been, ‘hungry, hungry, in my tummy,’ but when Lottie got old enough to feed the younger ones too, she’d confidently crooned it using the word ‘tumbly’ instead, and it had amused Louis enough that it had stuck. Lottie now scowls at him every time he so much as whispers the words around her, so naturally when he’s back home he sings it as often as possible, in many varying tones of volume.

He continues on his quest for food by rooting in every single cupboard on his search, and then leaves all of the cupboard doors open in protest when none can be found.

He pads back into the living room and throws himself on the couch, pressing his face into the cushions as he heaves out an impressive sigh that at least one of his friends should be around to hear, take pity on him, and then feed him their own food. He tries to avoid thinking about how he’s inside on a Saturday night, because his stupid fucking cold was too shitty for him to feel well enough to go out with the lads and get pissed. He could barely even concentrate in his lecture today, sometimes the lecturers could just be so _boring_ , especially when you’re ill.  The sofa smells of cigarettes, he notices. Zayn has got to stop fucking smoking on his fucking sofa. He turns his head to the side and tries to pay attention to the telly.

It takes him about four minutes to realise that the show is Geordie Shore, the people are in fact speaking in English and that he’s a fucking idiot when he’s still half asleep.

About three quarters of the way through his fourth episode-he found the show on demand, and decided that it was indeed a huge waste of his time, and so should proceed to watch all of them immediately- he hears a giggle from outside his flat. It’s muffled and so is quiet enough for Louis to question whether or not he did actually hear it, before he decides it’s better to be safe than sorry and flings himself off the sofa. He leaves the telly on, because he’s a bit of a dickhead like that, and practically flies into the kitchen. He grabs the two packets of crisps hidden in the microwave and the half opened bottle of coke in the fridge, that is most definitely Harry’s and will most definitely get him a bollocking later.

But if Harry’s going to bring back a lad or lady to fuck, whilst Louis is ill and mucus filled, then Louis’ pretty sure the bottle of coke is the least Harry can do for forcing Louis to suffer through such fate.

‘Cos the thing is, Harry and Louis met last year during Fresher’s week for Manchester University, and clicked so instantly and so fucking profoundly, that Louis knows him down to every last molecule. Including his sex giggle. And the muffled sound Louis heard on the stairs, was most definitely his sex giggle. Meaning, Harry was about to get laid, and unless Louis can hightail it to his bedroom as quick as is possible, then he’s definitely gonna get an eyeful. Not that Harry isn’t fucking gorgeous, but ew, no.

So he skids, elegantly, into his bedroom and shuts the door behind him, straining a little to hear the key in the lock that announces Harry’s return. He rolls his eyes at Harry’s deep baritone voice and the answering giggle it receives. So it’s a guy he’s fucking then.

It’s not that he’s not proud of Harry managing to pull, which isn’t exactly a rare occurrence, he just hopes that this time it’s not another hipster douchebag that obviously judges Louis for his taste in every fucking thing. The familiar urge to go out and just ruin everything by saying hi swells up within him, and the small pang of disgust he feels at himself easily follows. He’s not in love with Harry, a fact he feels like he’s been telling everyone since the beginning of time, he just really does love the guy and hasn’t seen him in hours and for all Louis knows the guy he’s shagging tonight could be the guy Harry leaves Louis and their flat for. That guy could be Harry’s new best friend.  

And that all makes him feel a little bit sick, so he rips open one of the packets of crisps and eats half the bag whilst half-listening, half-ignoring the sounds of Harry and his one nighter stumble around the flat. He’s just pulled his jumper off to get into bed, when he hears a marginally loud thud.

‘Ow fuck.’ The guy swears and Louis snickers to himself.

‘Oh shit,’ Harry replies, and Louis can imagine him already pulling out frozen peas to try and make it better already, his face kind. ‘I’m sorry, my, Louis, not my Louis, but Louis, my flatmate, he probably urm… did that.’

‘Left all the cupboard doors open?’

Louis grins proudly and holds the crisps up in the air like a trophy.

‘Yeah.’

‘Because?’

‘Because…’

‘He’s a bit of a prat?’ The guy fills into Harry’s silence.

Louis immediately scowls and hopes that the guy hits his head even harder on the doors next time. ‘Cock,’ he mumbles over Harry’s immediate defence of Louis’ personality and his quirks. Louis huffs and makes his decision. He is a man with principles, and such principles include automatically hating anyone with the nerve to insult him even though they’ve never met him.

 Also, idiots that walk into cupboard doors that are clearly open. Idiot.

He flops down onto his bed as the clear sounds of kissing return, and scrolls through his phone, thumbing it open to the messages page.

_-Zayyyyynnnn_

_-What_

_-Whatcha doing?_

_-Drinking_

_-With everyone?_

_-Apart from Haz, yeah_

_-Haz is here, sucking some guy off_

_-Lou, you perv. Stop watching_

_-He hasn’t done it yet. But I can tell he’s gearing up for it._

_-That’s kinda creepy_

Louis’ in the middle of writing out a lengthy reply of all of Harry’s very obvious moves that display his desire to either give or receive a blow job, when his phone pings.

_-Gotta go, Liam’s here. Bye babes_

Louis scoffs at the text and replies anyway.

_-Make sure to stick your tongue in his mouth this time, or you know, say more than two words to him._

_-Fuck you_

_-Cheerio sunshine._

Unsuprisingly, he doesn’t get a response. The tragedy that is the barely concealed pining of Zayn Malik (Louis’s occasional hook-up and best friend) and Liam Payne (adorable, puppy-like bartender, who works at their favourite club) normally causes Louis endless amounts of entertainment. Not so much when he’s not actually there to see it though.

Louis met Zayn three months into university when he’d been spraying graffiti on a wall near to the halls Louis had been staying in. Louis had cocked his head to the side and told Zayn he thought he’d fucked up the picture of bunny Zayn had done and Zayn had scowled at him before cracking a smile and that had been it.

 The thought of him and Liam bumbling through the evening with unsure touches and unnoticed smiles is way too pathetic for Louis to even want to think about right now, so he throws his phone back on his bed.

The quiet moans coming from the pair of lads in his flat seem to filter into Louis’ bedroom, which is all manner of disgusting, and since he didn’t hear Hazza’s door shut can only mean that they’re doing it on the sofa. Which is completely unacceptable and definitely not something Louis has done himself many times before.  

With a great sigh, Louis grabs his headphones from beside his bed and shoves them in making sure to play the loudest, angriest music he can find. And it’s not only to prevent him from hearing the noises next door.

He stares up at the ceiling and begins to count, making sure to blink after every five seconds. His chest tightens a little, and he swallows. He thought he’d have a bit more time before this whole thing. That maybe Harry would come home, alone, and relatively sober and they could stick a movie on or something. He thought he had another couple of hours before the panic would inevitably settle in the back of his throat and press down on his chest.

He makes sure to lie directly below his light bulb so that it shines down onto his eyelids, so bright that even if his eyes do close, he’ll still be able to see it. It’ll just be a pale light behind his eyelids, a swirling mass of colour. But it’ll give him something to focus on, something to make him just uncomfortable enough that sleep won’t come so easy. One, two, three, four, blink. One, two, three, four, blink. One, two, three, four, blink. Over and over again. He doesn’t get up to check his wardrobe or look under his bed. He doesn’t need to. He repeats that to himself four more times. He is perfectly fine lying on his bed with his eyes shut. He knows he’s the only one here.

One, two, three, four, blink. Maybe tonight, it won’t be so bad.

-

He keeps his eyes tightly shut and his hand clenched tightly into the duvet cover, his wrist starting to shake for his effort. His heart is thudding loudly in his chest, and it’s so harsh and so loud that he thinks it’s a miracle that Haz hasn’t rushed in yet, hasn’t yanked the covers off him and asked him why his heart is beating outside his chest, why it’s making so much noise and what can he do to help?

He was told once, right at the beginning, that he should try to always dismiss illogical thoughts with logical thoughts. For example- ‘the whole world thinks I’m fat’ is not a logical thought, as you have not met every person in the world and so have no way to verify that indeed, the whole world thinks you’re fat. His is very aware, however, that he is not fat, maybe a little squishy round the edges, but the glory that is his bum has always seemed to be enough compensation for the tiny swell of tummy that rests just above his hips- and that the example given to him by whatever therapist he was seeing at the time was a fucking dumb example, because to him, what he thinks and what he feels right now, is fucking logical. And terrifying.

And if he opens his eyes and turns his head a little, he’s sure he’ll be proved right.

So he stays where he is, for as long as he can. Even as his hips start to cramp and sweat gathers at the small of his back and across his forehead because of how tightly drawn he has the covers around him. Sometimes, when it gets really really bad, he shouts for Harry. He is a twenty year old man studying for a degree in theatre, and sometimes he has night terrors that petrify him so badly, he shouts for his best friend the same way he used to shout for his mum. On those nights, he clings to Harry tightly, pushes his face into his friend’s neck the minute Harry slides into bed with him because Louis can be almost painfully pathetic during the night. And always aware of such a fact.

For now, though, he lies still on his side, with his eyes clenched shut in order to avoid the night terror that he’s pretty certain is either in his room or waiting silently in his head, just in case he drifts back off to sleep. His light is still on, and he can feel the glow just behind his eyelids, so he focuses on that, tries to use it to ground him. To give him courage.

For as long as he can remember, when Louis sleeps a man with the face of a fox stands at the end of his bed. When Louis wakes up, the man at the end of his bed is still there, dressed all in black, staring at him. In his dreams, some scary, some not, the man is always there. Hidden in the dark corner, standing to the side of a tree, watching at the end of a bar. The man with the face of a fox has haunted Louis for as long as he can remember, and as far as he is concerned, the fear that he feels, is very fucking logical.

He counts down from a hundred, his heart continuously thudding, even louder and even stronger as he hits the twenties. When he hits number one, his eyes slam open and in his haste to throw the duvet off himself, he practically falls off his bed. He staggers across the room, ignoring the empty space where his nightmare always stands and stumbles out into the hallway. He closes the door quickly behind him, and lets his head thud back against it, his breath escaping in short puffs.

Louis prides himself on keeping his emotions locked down deep, tucked inside of himself like a pet that he can call upon when and if he needs them. Louis has no control over fear. Fear thrives in the darkness, fear gurgles behind Louis’ teeth and swims along his synapses.

Louis drowns in fear every night.

He shuts his eyes and breathes. Harry’s voice clear in his mind, _Lou, Lou, Lou, only a dream pretty Lou, it was only a dream, don’t forget to breathe Lou, Lou are you breathing?, breathe babe, breathe._ The part where he wakes up from his nightmares are always the worst, because Louis is nearly always half asleep anyway. His eyes are always heavy and his mind distinctly muddled. Harry’s often told Louis of conversations they’ve had when Louis was half awake after a nightmare, that Louis can’t even remember. It’s like being drunk but hurtling towards sobriety, your brain’s grasp of speech that isn’t slurred or thoughts that aren’t fucking stupid, isn’t quite there yet even though it’s trying so hard. And when Louis is half asleep, limbs practically shaking from exhaustion, his muscles tense with the desire to run the fuck away- logical thinking isn’t really his forte.

The hallway is dark apart from a dim glow at the end, towards their living room. That light causes Louis’s heart to almost fly out of his fucking mouth. He looks back at Harry’s shut door and the gentle snores he hears. Harry’s in his room. If Harry’s in his room, then who the fuck is in the living room?

 _This is it_ , he thinks. This is the moment in the horror film, where the protagonist is a complete and utter moron and goes and checks out the thud in the kitchen and then ends up being murdered with an axe. But Louis knows terror, and he knows that there is no burglar or demon on this Earth, that would scare him as much as the nightmare that may still be stood at the bottom of his bed. So he creeps towards the end of the hall way, preparing to see a man in a balaclava with a bag for all the expensive commodities he and Haz have, when his jaw drops open instead what he sees.

The telly is on, and the silhouette of a man Louis definitely does not know, is outlined by the light. It’s clearly not Harry, and Louis’ mouth opens and shuts in an effort to call for his friend before it’s too late, before his heart thuds right out of his chest, before this man notices, but the words are frozen in his throat, dried up on his tongue and he slides down the wall, a whimper caught in his chest.

Because that must be his nightmare right there. The man with the angular face and the dark clothes. He pinches at his skin but he’s not dreaming. Louis dreams of a man stood at the end of his bed, and right now there’s a man sat on the edge of his sofa, and those two things seem to equate to the exact same thing in Louis’s brain.

His left hand lands on something hard and leather, and without even thinking, his fist closes around it and hurls it towards his nightmare, clapping a hand over his mouth when it hits him square on the side of his face.

But his nightmare does not grow tall and growl. Nor does it turn and murder Louis on the spot. Instead, it swears.

‘Ow, what the bloody fuck was that?’

Louis frowns instinctively, his hand still pressed over his lips. Because he knows that voice, it’s familiar to him in the same way that voices on television adverts are familiar. The figure turns towards him and Louis presses his lips together in confusion as the figure glares at him.

 Nick Grimshaw is on his sofa. His heart thuds, but in a more subdued way now, and Louis recognises as the adrenaline seems to thrum steadily throughout his body in a calmer manner. In an attempt to calm him down, rather than rile him up.

‘What the fuck are you playing at?’

Louis’s hackles rise at the question and he stands up, ignoring the shake in his legs and the residue thud of his heart. He takes a determined step forward. ‘What the fuck am I playing at? What the fuck are you playing at?’

His question gets no response and Louis’s eyes are still heavy from sleep, and his limbs feel tired and achey and suddenly absolutely nothing makes any sense whatsoever.

‘Just in general, what the fuck is going on?’ He asks again.

Grimshaw seems to stare at him in disbelief, a hand coming up to absently rub at his temple. ‘You just threw a shoe at me?’

Louis purses his lips and crosses his arms. ‘You’re sat on my sofa, at arse o clock in the morning.’

‘So you threw a fucking shoe at me? Are you a five year old?’

‘Are you actually an idiot? Why the fuck are you in my flat at three in the morning?’

Grimshaw continues to stare at him in disbelief, and Louis scowls, rubbing at his eyes a little to check he’s not dreaming. Which apparently, he’s not, cos when he lowers his wrists Grimshaw’s still there. Still looking incredulous and now Louis’s getting pissed.

‘Well?’ He demands, throwing his hands up in the air. ‘Did you break in? Are you lost? Are you fucking incapable of speech now?’

Did he take some drugs before bed? Louis frowns. He ran out of the prescription antibiotics from the chemist, like two days ago, and all he’s had since then is ibuprofen and super noodles. No alcohol, no weed. So no hallucinations. Unless he’s actually gone insane.

‘Harry-’ Grimshaw starts and it takes a moment before it all clicks but when it does, Louis rolls his eyes.

‘Oh for fucks sake. You’re his one night stand?’ Louis narrows his eyes at him. ‘What the fuck Hazza?’ He murmurs into his shoulder, glancing back towards where Harry’s bedroom door is shut.

‘I’m sorry, I think I’m going to have to take a moment to figure out what the fuck is going on. Little bit young for you isn’t he?’ He shoots out and Grimshaw glares at him.

‘Dunno about that love, think my uh, _experienced nature_ , went down pretty well last night. As I’m sure you heard.’ Grimshaw smirks seedily and Louis curls up his lip, watching as Grimshaw leans forward and scrubs his hands over his face, blinking rapidly.

Last night comes flooding back. In his, confused state of mind, Louis had totally forgotten that Harry had bought a lad back with him. And that the lad had called him a prat.

And that said lad, now appeared to be Radio One DJ Nick Grimshaw, who Louis listened to only when Harry was making him breakfast, and sometimes if he arrived at his part time job down the local café early enough. Grimshaw had always pissed him off. And now he was on Louis’s sofa. And he’d fucked Harry. And Louis had thrown a shoe at him.

 And he couldn’t help but notice how big Grimshaw’s hands were, how they could probably cover the whole of his- woah, shutting that thought down. His life was such a mess.

‘You threw a shoe at me.’

‘I thought you were a burglar.’ Louis lies in a bored tone, keeping his face bland. It was the same lie he’d fed to Niall after hitting him in the throat when they’d accidentally falling asleep cuddled together on the big armchair in their living room.

‘A burglar that stopped to have a kip on your sofa and watch a bit of telly?’ Nick raises his eyebrows at him, and his tone of voice is condescending at best. Downright wankerish at worst. He definitely does not have a nice face. Louis shrugs.

‘Sure it wasn’t the dark to scare you?’ Nick asks. His tone seems a bit lighter, but the question immediately puts Louis on edge and he clenches his jaw. ‘Does it give you nightmares?’

‘No, it fucking doesn’t. Fuck you, you don’t fucking know anything, alright?’ The words tumble out of Louis’ mouth before he can stop them, and a look of surprise washes over Nick’s face at his outburst. Louis doesn’t like the way he’s looking at him, like he’s analysing what Louis said. Like he can see in between all of Louis’ words and keep digging until he finds the meaning there.

‘Woah,’ he raises his hands, in what Louis assumes is an attempt at platitude. But his heart is still pounding, and now his hands feel clammy and hot, the words spinning in the air in front of him- _does it give you nightmares?_

‘Calm down love, don’t get your knickers in a twist,’ Nick grunts out, twisting his back to get it to pop. He says it so casually, like Louis is a child that should be ignored due to his behaviour.

‘Well, you’re a bit of a wanker aren’t you?’ Louis shoots back. ‘How’s your head by the way? Heard you bumped into a few doors last night, bit stupid that.’ He calls over his shoulder as he walks into the kitchen.

‘You must be Louis.’ Nick drawls, a look of mild disgust on his face as he watches Louis turn the kettle on and leans in the doorway to the kitchen. He’s wearing a stupid leather jacket and jeans so tight they rival Harry’s, and Louis’s overwhelmed by intense dislike almost instantly.

‘Yep.’ Louis replies, turning round to smile sweetly at him. ‘And you are?’

Nick’s eyes narrow for a second, but Louis continues to innocently smile at him, his head tilted slightly to the side.

‘Nick.’ He says. ‘Nick… Grimshaw?’

Louis blinks dumbly at him and he sighs. He’s not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that Louis knows who he is.

‘That’s great,’ Louis says after a few moments. ‘Well. I would say it was nice to meet you, but my mother taught me not to lie.’

He turns around at Nick’s disbelieving snort and quickly makes his tea.

‘Charming little thing, aren’t you?’

‘Yep.’ Louis repeats, and brushes past him nonchalantly.

He stops dead in the living room and turns on his heel accusingly, a glare already plastered on his face.

‘Geordie Shore?’

Nick cocks an eyebrow and glances at the telly’s screen. ‘Evidently.’

‘I was watching that.’

‘Wow, you really are a complete child.’

‘And you really are a complete prick.’

‘You don’t even know me love.’

‘And you don’t even know me, _pet_ , so don’t talk down to me.’

‘Then don’t give me a reason to.’ The corner of Nick’s mouth tilts up and Louis wants to punch him. He can feel the frustration bubbling in his chest.

‘How come you’re out here anyway? Go back to bed, go cuddle with Haz, he’d love that.’ Louis says bitingly, settling himself down on the sofa.

‘Wasn’t sure whether I should stay.’ Nick replies casually, and Louis’ assessment of the guy was completely finished. Done and done. And he had labelled him as a complete prick.

‘You utter wanker.’ Louis hisses, aware that it’s a bit much for their first meeting, that he has been nothing but rude in the last five minutes. But there is just something about Nick’s face that makes him angry. Angry and frustrated and fucking pissed off.

Nick makes a start forward, looking genuinely mad rather than the arrogant amusement that had been plastered on his face earlier, and Louis raises both his eyebrows at him in challenge, lifting his mug to his lips.

‘Grimmy?’

They both twist their heads at Harry’s voice, and something in Louis’ chest settles a little at the sight of his best friend.

‘Harry,’ Nick’s voice is soft and fond, and Louis finds it insanely disgusting.

‘You weren’t in bed.’ Harry replies, and even though it’s clearly an accusation, the tinge of worry and kindness and just general Harry-ness is very clear.

‘No, sorry bout that love.’ Nick answers, and Louis wonders if they’re having a competition for who can speak the quietest. He’s never liked silence, always wanted to fill the room, fill the space, fill the quiet. So that’s what he does.

He yawns loudly and obnoxiously and grins widely at Nick when Harry stumbles blearily over to him, hands instantly outstretched for him.

‘Lou?’ He says, and he’s so clearly worried and with so much previous experience of Louis and his fun-filled night times, he has every reason to be. It makes Louis’ chest ache a little. He pushes Harry’s curls out of his face and smiles gently.

‘‘M okay,’ he murmurs and Harry’s face relaxes a little, but his shoulders are still tense. Like he’s prepared to pounce forward and scoop Louis up if he gives the order.

Louis feels Nick shuffle awkwardly behind him and he rolls his eyes, patting Harry’s shoulder fondly and moving into the kitchen, his now lukewarm mug of tea clasped in his hand. He pours the tea down the drain and shakes his head a little at the surrealness of the night. He’s tired and grumpy and will definitely wring the shit out of Harry for picking up Nick fucking Grimshaw in the morning, but right now, he just wants to stare blankly at something.

He can practically feel the tension radiating off of both Harry and Nick, and he waits in the kitchen patiently for it to simmer down, nibbling at the side of a stale chocolate digestive he found in the bread bin.

 _Nick’s a prick_ , he thinks. He nods at the thought, both for its honesty and for the rhyme.

And his legs and hair are completely ridiculous.

He’s just a total wanker, and Louis can feel the anger beginning to simmer in his belly again thinking about their previous interaction. How Nick had almost called Louis out on night terrors he’d hid from every fucking one for as long as he could remember. How Nick was a fucking douchebag who probably would have snuck out on Harry had Louis not been there to interrupt.

‘Lou?’ Harry’s head pops into the doorway and Louis glances up, smiling at him as he pops the rest of the biscuit in his mouth.

‘Going to bed. You okay?’ The sincerity in Harry’s voice is soothing and Louis nods in response, knowing that this night is lost to him. There’s no way in hell he’s going back to sleep and he feels too worked up from his encounter with Nick to just chill in his room.

He offers Harry a tiny smile which is immediately returned when Harry doesn’t immediately turn away from the doorway. Harry eventually pads down the corridor and Nick replaces him, shuffling his feet whilst he stares at Louis.

One, two, three, four, blink.

 Nick blinks right back. Louis feels his stomach roll before completely flipping over and a shiver trails down his arms from Nick’s gaze.

Which is of course why he opens his mouth slowly to give Nick a view of the chewed up biscuit inside. Nick’s face scowls in disgust and Louis instantly closes his mouth and smirks.

‘Night Nick,’ he says cheerily, speaking around his food and Nick sneers at him.

‘You’re vile,’ he spits out and turns to follow Harry down the hallway.

‘Prick,’ Louis mumbles to himself in the quiet of the kitchen. ‘Absolute fucking prick.’

-

 ‘And fuck you very much.’ Louis calls, slamming the door shut with an exaggerated flourish of his arm. He stares at the door for a moment, anger still coursing through him, right down to his hands. His fingers tremble by his thighs and he clenches them in and out in an attempt to get them to stop.

Taking a deep breath, he glances over his shoulder at Harry and winces. ‘Haz-’ He begins, but is cut off by Harry raises his hand. He’s sat on the sofa, leaning forward onto his knees, one of his hands deep in his hair and the other one stretched out in front of him towards Louis.

A surge of guilt washes over Louis and he bites it back down. Nick is a complete dickhead, and yeah okay, so maybe he wasn’t exactly saint-like today himself, but Nick had been an absolute wanker of a human being and Louis was not going to stand for it.

‘What even,’ Harry mutters, his head still hanging down. ‘Like, what even was that.’

‘He started it,’ Louis replies petulantly and Harry’s head jolts up, his eyes wide in amazement.

‘Lou, that was… You and him. You were _cruel_ , to each other just then. Like really really mean.’ Harry shakes his head and Louis shrugs a little. It’s just the way they are with each other. Really, it should have been obvious from their first encounter that they were two people that were just not ever gonna gel. Louis accepted it pretty easily, he and Nick fight, annoy the fuck out of each other, then forget all about it the minute they leave each other sights. The next time he sees Nick, it starts all over- just as harsh and biting as before, but with no held grudges from previous encounters. Every interaction is as if they’d just discovered they hated each other all over again.

‘He’s a wanker,’ Louis says simply and plops himself down on the sofa next to Harry, stealing the remote and flipping the channel off the nature documentary Nick had been watching with Harry when Louis came into the room.

‘You made him leave. You were rude enough, to make him get up and leave.’ Harry continues, a kind of awe laced into his tone that makes Louis frown and look at him.

‘You’ve seen us fight before Haz,’

‘I know. But that was just. Wow.’

Louis sits up and studies his friend closely. ‘Harry?’

‘I really want you two to get along, I mean you’re both, you’re both really important to me.’

‘You met Nick like two weeks ago,’ Louis interrupts and when Harry turns to look at him, his face seems serious and almost pleading.

‘Yeah and it took me and you four hours to decide that we wanted to move in together someday,’ Harry shoots back. ‘I just. I want you guys to like each other, but even if you can’t, at the very least be civil. You don’t even try. You’re just, you’re horrible to each other.’

Louis bites down on his lip and shuffles a little on the sofa. He knows the violent dislike displayed between himself and Nick has both baffled and saddened Harry from the get go, and he loves the boy so much that he wishes he could just turn something off in himself that sees Nick and get’s so fucking angry.

But he can’t. It’s like Nick opened him up right from the start, saw all of his weakness, every single one of his insecurities and then painted them right in the air in front of him with harsh words and subtle hints. So, Louis did the same. Prodding and poking in all the spots he noticed hurt the most, never backing down even for a second around Nick.

He tugs his phone out of his pocket and types out a quick message to Nick, before shoving it in Harry’s face.

_Sorry_

‘Better?’ He asks, and Harry frowns but nods, still a little subdued and wanders into the kitchen, mumbling a promise of tea. He’s been Louis’s friend for long enough to know that getting more than that as an apology from Louis is a pretty rare thing that he would definitely not bestow on Nick Grimshaw. Louis waits until he hears Harry begin to fill the kettles before clicking back onto his text message and firing off a second.

_That you have such a wankerish personality. Guess theres got to be some dickheads in the world_

A faint tug of satisfaction pulls at Louis’s chest. He stole Nick’s number off of Harry’s phone and has found great joy in sending Nick multiple messages about how much he dislikes him. Such gems include the epic jokes Louis thinks of, like; _How many nick grimshaw’s does it take to change a lightbulb?... none, he prefers to sit in the dark and listen to sounds of dolphins mating because he’s a hipster knobhead._

In return, Nick normally fills Louis’s phone with pictures messages of penises that have some sort of sexually transmitted disease, that automatically save onto his phone.

Louis phone lights up with a text message just as Harry comes back into the living room with tea.

_Rather be a dickhead than a failing actor. Tell me again, how are those auditions coming along darling?_

Louis bites back a snarl and practically throws his phone onto the sofa cushion next to him, schooling his face into a nicer expression as he turns to take the cup from Harry.

Harry settles into the cushion next to him, and flicks the channel off from the football match and onto Friends, balancing the remote between his knees. Louis runs his thumb over the bottom of his phone in steady streaks and tries desperately not to think of Nick. It aggravates him how much of his time is currently occupied by Nick, especially seeing as he’s such a complete knobhead, and there’s very little Louis can do except deal with it.

He’s grown accustomed to kicking people out of his life, or neglecting them in the first place, if he actively dislikes them or feels as though they could be a bit of a shit to be around. Grimshaw is the first person in a long time, who he’s tolerated regardless of this rule. And, God, Louis hates him so much.

He’s not even entirely sure if he _should_ feel obligated to at least _try_ not to punch Nick in the face every time he sees him, just because of Harry. Louis knows Harry likes Nick, maybe even considers him a best friend, a fact which has both forced Louis to print out multiple pictures of the ugliest mugshots of Nick he can find and paste them around Harry’s room _and_ have a bit of a cry in the shower late at night at the thought that his best friend in the entire world, might just have found someone he loves just as much, who isn’t Louis. But in terms of the romance between Harry and Nick, Louis ain’t seen much of it. And Hazza’s a sap. Like a supreme sap. The sappiest. So Louis generally equates the seriousness of Harry’s relationships according to the amount of sap he’s witness to. But there’s no sap between the pair of them, and if there’s no sap, should Louis even be feeling bad for not wanting to be around the world’s most dickish prick?

They do have a lot of sex. In fact, Louis’s often had to leave the fucking flat due to the amount of noise they make, but it just doesn’t feel like, when he walks into the flat to see them going at it in the kitchen, he’s walking into relationship sex. He’s never confronted by the pair of them exchanging Eskimo kisses or talking to each other in stupid baby names- it’s just sex. It’s just moaning and swearing, and sometimes giggling, and then they’ll stumble out of Harry’s room and watch the telly.

Sometimes when Nick leaves he doesn’t even give Harry a kiss. Sometimes when Nick leaves, he pauses at the door and looks back at Louis. He never says goodbye.

He’s trying hard to not think about it. Nick’s only been around for a couple of weeks, maybe the pair of them are just working into it? The thought is always always undermined by Harry’s other relationships, where his little Haz has fallen hard, and fucking fast, and after three days is already doodling the last name of his current partner onto the edge of Louis’ drama notes. There’s been no ‘Harry Grimshaw’ on Louis’ things, or anywhere else in the flat. Not even on Harry’s own stuff.

He frowns, unable to resist, and taps out a quick reply to Nick- _just fuck off yeah_ \- and turns his phone off, falling face first into Harry’s arm, then his armpit when he raises it to accommodate for Louis’ face.

‘Sleepy Lou?’ Harry asks around a yawn himself, and Louis lets himself smile into Harry’s shoulder.

‘Never babe. Got to go to work in a couple of hours anyway, promised I’d close up.’

‘Louuuu-’

‘Don’t whine Harold, it’s unbecoming of a young lady.’

He glances up at Harry and bites down a smile at the look of fond exasperation on his friend’s face. There are bags under Harry’s eyes and his smile droops a little at the sight, nestling closer in an attempt at comfort that he still finds it hard to verbalise.

Second year of university is hard. It’s a lot of work, and though Harry should classify somewhere as a musical genius- or at least he should according to Louis- it doesn’t mean that his work load isn’t strenuous, which cannot be helped by the fact that four times a week he finds himself sprinting into Louis room to try and soothe his fears.

Louis learnt once that the human body has the incredible capacity to block out things that cause pain, particularly emotional distress. He thinks that the odd sort of numbness he feels whenever he thinks about Harry and how he deals with Louis’ nightmares is probably some sort of form of this phenomenon.

Or maybe Louis just finds he’s been so humiliated by his night terrors that he can’t even find the will for regular, every day embarrassment.

He remembers the first time he called out for Harry as if it had happened only moments ago. He can call the memory of the night forward so easily because in part, it was the first time he realised he was never going to be able to let Harry go.

It had started, as they always seem to do, with a whimper.

_‘Harry?’ So quiet. So, so quiet. Needed to be quiet and soft, and maybe it would go away. Picture Harry, Harry with a sword, Harry beheading the fox faced man. The fox faced man at the end of his bed. The fox faced man staring at him the fox face man that is always there the fox faced man that never stops looking the fox faced man_

_‘Harry? Please’ One beg. Let himself have one beg for Harry. For his mum for harry or his mum. The fox faced man that won’t stop staring and could reach out and grab his ankle any minute now, it could happen, the duvet isn’t protection enough and he can’t breathe from the fox faced man because he’s everywhere and he’s drowning from his gaze_

_‘Please help me.’_

_‘Please, please help me. Oh God, I can’t, I don’t know how to-’_

_He’d screamed then. Screamed unintelligible nonsense. Screamed until his throat gave out and his chest was heaving. He cried in Harry’s lap, clutching the front of his best friend’s shirt._

_His piss soaked right through his own joggers and Harry’s bare thighs._

-

The next morning, Louis had called Harry a cunt and kicked him out of the flat. The morning after that, Louis took Harry to a McDonalds down the road, bought him a strawberry milkshake and told him all about the man at the bottom of his bed.

Harry had drunk the milkshake and came back from his lecture with a crudely made dream-catcher and a kiss pressed to Louis’ forehead.

For the next year and a bit, he cradled Louis in his lap, whilst he pissed and screamed and puked his fears right out of his body.

-

And so it plays on. Louis continues to question the authenticity of Harry and Nick’s ‘love’ for each other and in return, Harry still stays up the nights with Louis after his night terrors and Nick continues to be the biggest pleb God placed breath into.

‘Really inventive mix of music today Nicholas, that’ll keep your listeners happy.’ Louis gripes as soon as Nick saunters through the door, his eyes automatically seeking out Louis.

‘Do fuck off Tomlinson.’

‘Fuck off yourself.’

‘No, ta. At least not until I’ve finished this cuppa.’ He smiles into the tea Harry hands him, looking entirely relaxed as Harry glances between the two of them warily.

‘You bore me.’ Louis drawls.

‘Feeling’s entirely mutual love.’

-

Louis chronicles down on his tissue napkin every time Harry eyes up someone who is decidedly not Nick, in the diner they’re in, with a little splodge of tap water from the end of his straw. The diner’s faux American, and Louis doesn’t really get the appeal other than they do really good nacho’s here, but Nick’s drivelling on about the décor and the ambience and Louis’ about two seconds away from stabbing him with a fork when Zayn places a hand on his wrist and drags his thumb along the soft skin on the inside.

Louis tilts his head to the side in question, not taking his eyes off the napkin, blinking a tad sleepily when Zayn crowds in closer to him to whisper in his ear.

‘I was thinking-’ Zayn begins, and his tone is wicked and sly and exactly the sort of fun Louis needs right now, but he drags his eyes up and away from the table, just as Nick turns his head to the right away from Harry and so catches his gaze.

Louis’s gaze flickers from Nick’s face to where Harry’s rambling on about some story involving a kite, two watermelons and the Iggy Azelea song ‘Fancy’, and then back to Nick again. Nick arches his eyebrow with the slightest roll of his eyes and his inclined slightly towards Harry, and for a moment Louis almost laughs.

He can feel it right at the back of his throat. Nick wasn’t rolling his eyes _at_ Harry, more at his total incapability of telling a story without it becoming a fucking audio book the size of the fourth Harry Potter book. And that’s funny. Louis teases him for that all the time.

And he was just about to laugh at Nick’s obvious fond frustration for the exact same thing.

So, obviously, Louis flicks his straw at him, causing water to splatter across the table and just hit the edge of Nick’s leather jacket, where his elbow is resting on the table. The causal calmness of Nick’s face quickly morphs into the extreme dislike Louis knows so well, and he settles back more comfortably in his seat; his brain stroking at the boundaries and lines that have been thrown back up between himself and Nick, in satisfaction.

Zayn breathes a little heavily against Louis neck which successfully drags his attention away from Nick and back to Zayn because Goddamn it, Zayn knows that pisses him off.

‘Malik, are you quite finished?’

Zayn’s eyes are wide and innocent, but his mouth is caught in a smirk and he leans back against the booth, propping one of his arms along the side and cupping the back of his neck. Zayn is, hands down, the most attractive person Louis has ever met. Louis has not had sex in quite a long time. The combination of these two things make Zayn seem almost unbearably delicious in the dark lighting of the diner.

‘You know you don’t have to pull me right? I’m pretty much a sure thing,’ Louis teases quietly and Zayn grins, ducking his head down a little to peer up from Louis from underneath his eyelashes. Louis rolls his eyes because Zayn is completely fucking aware of how totally unfair he looks when he does that.

‘Oh for fucks sake, you total twat.’ Louis grins, throwing a handful of chips at him from the plate in front of him. Zayn only grins and catches Louis’ wrists in his hands, yanking Louis closer to him.

‘Louis, this jumper cost twenty quid.’

‘Well, that’s your own fucking fault for buying such an expensive jumper then innit?’

‘Don’t be a shit,’ Zayn smirks, holding on tighter as Louis tries to wiggle away, bumping into Greg, who’s sat on his other side. The next couple of seconds pass in a struggle that ends with Louis pressed right up against Zayn, having to tilt his head up a little to look at him.

‘What are you gonna do about it?’ He challenges, his gaze dropping down to Zayn’s lips. Zayn is an excellent fuck. Louis has extensive proof of such a fact, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Zayn was both totally gone for a certain bartender and so similar to Louis in terms of character that Louis can’t help but think of him as like a kind of weird, incesty, similar brother, Louis probably would have asked him out on a date years ago.

As it stands, he is more than happy to have occasional stoned sex with Zayn.

There’s a gleam in Zayn’s eye as he presses his lips to Louis neck, breathing again against his skin, chuckling as Louis squirms uncomfortably.

‘Didn’t realise we booked for dinner and a show?’

Louis raises his eyes to the sky as he mentally punches whatever God exists, in the face, for coming up with Nick fucking Grimshaw.

‘Don’t like it, fuck off,’ Louis tosses over his shoulder to Nick. He expects to see Nick watching him with a curled lip, but his eyes are fixed firmly on Zayn. It’s such an intense, unreadable expression that Louis blinks dumbly at him for a bit.

But Nick’s gaze doesn’t falter, and he’s so steady with it that Louis sneaks his hand into the back of Zayn’s hair and tugs, getting him to raise his head from Louis’s neck.

‘What?’ He mumbles, glancing up at Louis’ face and then following his eye line to Nick. Louis can’t take his eyes off of Nick’s face. He traces over his eyes again and again, working desperately to try and figure out what the fuck is going on there. He clenches his hands against the weirdest urge to push his fingers into Nick’s quiff, tilt his hand back and look right in his face. Look at him and force him to tell him what the fuck is going on, and why the room has got a bit hotter, and why he’s finding it hard to breathe.

‘Problem?’ Zayn asks him casually, tipping a cigarette out of the box and tucking it behind his ear. Nick blinks, once, twice and then grins, stretching out on the booth seat and wrapping an arm around Harry.

‘Not at all darling,’ he drawls out, the words barely leaving his lips before he’s pulling Harry closer to him and whispering things in his ear that are forcing a blush onto Harry’s cheeks.

‘Um, we, um,’ Harry stutters, and this time Louis does roll his eyes. He feels as if the tension has been drained from his body, and all that’s left behind is this weird, jittery feeling that’s left his limbs feel way too big. He leans heavily against Zayn, planting his hand on his thigh, and scratching along his jeans.

‘We’re gonna head out, I think, guys.’ Harry finishes. ‘But don’t worry,’ he grins. ‘It’s not because we’re NACHOS friends anymore,’

Harry gestures happily at the mostly finished bowl of nachos in the middle of the table as everybody groans.

‘Harold, quite frankly, that was appalling.’ Louis declares.

Nick smirks as Harry slides out the booth and slaps a note down on the table.

‘For us both,’ he says.

‘How fucking gentlemanly,’ Louis mutters, feeling as Zayn huffs out a laugh underneath him.

The pair graciously say their goodbyes to the odd mix of Harry’s friends and Nick’s friends, before Nick’s tugging at Harry’s hand and pulling him, giggling, out of the diner.

Zayn idly drums his fingers against Louis’ side. ‘Lou?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You know how sometimes you and Harry do that weird thing, where you sleep with the same person?’

‘For fucks sake Zayn, that was twice that happened.’

‘Whatever. Did you do that with Nick?’

‘What? What the fuck, no. Ew.’

‘Never had a drunken snog?’

‘Seriously, no. I hate the guy. He’s a fucking prick.’

‘But he just…’

‘What?’

‘No, don’t worry.’

Louis shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t even care enough about Nick to want to unpick Zayn’s opinion on him. Nick’s a prick, Louis hates him, that’s kind of all there is to it really.

-

‘Why are you always here?’

‘I live here dickhead.’

‘No, I mean, why are you always here, when I’m here?’

‘Again- for the sake of your old, tired, probably miniscule brain- I live here.’

‘Can’t you just… go?’

An orange peel smacks Nick in the middle of the forehead.

‘Oh for fucks sake-’

A banana peel follows suit.

‘Tomlin-’

A shoe hurtles past Nick’s forehead. The door slams.

‘Prick.’ Louis mutters.

-

There’s a faint throbbing behind Louis’ eyes that he knows means he’ll end up with a fucking awful headache later. He groans loudly and drops his head to the rickety desk he and Harry share, that sits in the corner of the living room.

The essay is slowly draining his will to live, and he’s left it so late that there’s absolutely no way he can put it off another day or so. It’s due in tomorrow morning. He’d come in from work, made himself some tea and then just sat idly in front of his laptop, willing the essay to write itself without Louis’ input. He’s so fucking tired.

‘Lou baby,’ Harry hums, squeezing his shoulder. ‘Maybe bed time yeah?’

Louis sighs and lifts his head, smiling gently at the warm cup of tea that Harry’s put next to his laptop.

‘Really can’t. Gotta get this done.’ He says mournfully and Harry looks sympathetic, dropping a kiss to the top of his head before meandering back into the living room. The telly’s on, but only quietly, a soft backdrop to the room and for once, in the entire bloody time Louis’ known him, Nicholas Grimshaw is not chatting complete bollocks every other minute.

The pair of them, Harry and Nick, seem almost content with tonight. Like there was nowhere else in the world they’d rather be than sat on that sofa together, watching whatever crap Harry had stuck on. It was peaceful and nice and Louis wasn’t at all bitter.

He threw a screwed up paper ball at Nick’s head just to prove the point.

An hour or so later, when the night was slowly creeping towards morning, Louis lets out what he knows is a very pitiful noise. Fuck, he hates asking for help.

‘Haz?’

‘Yeah mate?’

‘What’s like, another word for like. So, the set was basically empty and abandoned and just a shit hole basically. From like neglect and stuff?’

Harry scrunches up his nose and ruffles his curls absentmindedly. ‘Can’t you just put neglected?’

‘Not really mate, just used it in the sentence before.’

‘Derelict?’ Nick offers, looking over his shoulder at Louis. His face is guarded, like he’s expecting Louis to go off on one just at his voice, which, fair point. But, it also makes Louis stop for a bit. Tonight’s been sort of, just chill, and Louis hasn’t felt a night like that in such a long fucking time. He knows Haz is still so desperate for the pair of them to get along, and maybe, Louis doesn’t need to completely bite Nick’s head off just for being alive.

‘No thanks,’ he replies, rolling his shoulders back. Nick looks partially stunned for a couple of brilliant seconds, before he shrugs his shoulders and turns back to the telly.

‘Your call.’

Louis hums noncommittally in response and glares at his laptop screen, because really how dare it. How dare anything.

After another couple of seconds Louis grins and swivels back round on his chair, facing the sofa.

‘Hey, do you wanna know what rhymes with Nick?’ He asks, unable to keep the grin off of his face and the amusement out of his tone. Harry’s face drops for a second, but Nick just raises his eyebrows and his shoulders drop. Like he’s relaxed.

‘Enlighten me.’ Nick says, his mouth quirks up. Abstractly, the sight of it makes Louis want to grin wider he realises. Nicholas has quite a nice smile when he’s not being a prick.

He shakes his head right after that realisation, like he’s trying to physically knock it out of his brain, and straightens his posture.

‘Prick.’ He answers proudly. Harry rolls his eyes, Nick tries not to laugh. _Nick tries not laugh_.

‘Ahh, of course.’ He stutters around, his voice a little thick around the laughter and Louis feels inordinately pleased with himself. A flush of pleasure rises up his neck and he swivels back round to face his desk.

There’s a couple of minutes silence that’s filled with, not awkwardness exactly, but Louis doesn’t even know what. He’s not sure he could put a name to it.

‘Do you wanna know what rhymes with Louis?’

He hides his smile into the collar of his shirt.

‘What?’

‘Pooey.’

Louis can’t help it, the laugh bursts out of his before he has any time at all to try and cover it. He lifts his hands to his face as he tries to control his giggles, aware that Harry’s probably staring at them like they’ve given him the greatest gift in the world, or like he’s watching Batman and the Joker sit down for a quick cuppa.

He finds it hard to care.

Later, in the evening when Harry’s dozing on the sofa and Nick’s slipping his boots on to head back home, Louis feels his gangly figure come to stand beside him.

‘Can I help you?’ He asks, not looking up from his laptop screen.

‘Move over.’

‘Oh no sunshine.’

Nick shoves at his swivel chair and Louis goes rolling across the boards, his arms crossed and a scowl that is a much more Nicholas Grimshaw befitting look on his face.

Nick types on his laptop quickly, practically sprinting away and out of their door as Louis hurtles towards him on the swivel chair. He peers at his laptop screen, not noticing the bolded message at the bottom of the page for quite a while.

**D E R E L I C T- Just in case you didn’t know how to spell it, darling.**

Louis stares at the note for a moment, anger and fondness and a strong feeling of ‘Fucked. Fucked. I am fucked’ swirling around in his stomach.

‘Motherfucker,’ he growls, loud enough to cause Harry to stir.

‘Whasit Lou?’

‘Nothing babe. Go back to sleep.’

-

It’s half four in the morning when Louis stumbles his way towards the living room. His palms and back are drenched in sweat and he scrunches a hand tight into his hair, yanking hard. A low rumble of sound drifts out from behind the living room door as he pushes it open and instinctively his hand catches on the handle, his heart thudding even harder than it already is. As recognition of the voice filters through his brain, his terror subsides a bit, and he sighs at the sound of Nick’s voice. Louis is tired. He is so fucking exhausted and the energy it takes to hate Nick with the normal level of intensity, quite frankly, is non-existent. It’s quite rare for Louis to feel so tired that he would happily get on his knees and beg for sleep if he could, but right now was definitely one of those times and so he pads into the living room yawning.

It’s cold inside- Harry and Louis’ flat didn’t come with heating and Louis absently wishes he’d put on some socks. Nick glances up the moment Louis takes a further step into the room, a weary look passing over his face. His normally styled quiff is a pathetic mess of tangles and combined with his too large shirt and an old pair of Harry’s pajama bottoms, he really does look quite pathetic. Louis stops walking to peer at him for a second. Nick’s mobile is also pressed tightly to his ear, and the expression in his eyes is one Louis isn’t sure he’s ever seen Nick wear before. He looks sad.

Fuck. Nicholas Grimshaw was lying on his sofa and looking really, really fucking sad.

‘I know mum,’ Nick says suddenly and his voice is unexpected enough to make Louis jump. And then blush. And then scowl when Nick’s mouth tilts up at one corner. It’s a smile. Only little and tired and still kinda sad, but it’s a smile.

Louis chest tightens weirdly, especially when Nick’s mum says something else and his expression drops back into its previous mix of sad tiredness and he hums into the phone.

Nick’s listening figures had gone down again that week. And Louis knew that because he’d heard Harry quietly offering Nick comfort on the phone two days ago. He also knows that Nick’s mum is suffering from an illness that’s not been diagnosed yet, but the Grimshaw family is fucking shook up about it. He knows this because when they had all gone down to the pub yesterday Nick had drunkenly announced it and everyone had felt awkward for a good few seconds before Niall came stumbling back with another round of drinks.

Louis knows Nick isn’t sleeping because he was mumbling half concentrated answers to Harry today and only called Louis an imbecile two times.

Louis doesn’t give himself time to think about _it_. In fact, he thinks about every other fucking thing in the world as he potters around the kitchen. Like how he still hasn’t finished that essay on the introduction and importance of naturalism in theatre. Or how, his father had fucking texted his mum _again_ about seeing him soon. Or how, his night terror had been smiling when Louis had woken up, his fedora hat bent down over his eyes, so all Louis could see, on repeat, over and over again, was his grin. Louis thinks about it all. And he keeps fucking thinking about it as he walks steadily back into the living room and places a cup of tea on the coffee table beside Nick.

He quickly turns to go, his own cup held tight in his hands, when Nick’s fingers curl around his wrist to stop him. Nick’s stupidly long, irrelevant fingers. If anyone in the world has irrelevant fingers- it’s Nick. No one’s fingers are more irrelevant than Nick’s.

‘Louis,’ Nick says and Louis has no idea if it had meant to come out in a whisper, if Nick had meant for it to sound so loud in the quiet of the morning.

‘Hi,’ Louis replies, still whispering and for a couple of seconds, a couple of hours, a whole fucking decade- they just watch each. Nick’s face is confused and Louis doesn’t fucking blame him. He has no idea what he’s doing either, and Nick’s fingers don’t fucking let up on his wrist. Instead, Nick’s fingers stroke a little further up Louis’ arm and when he exhales the noise is shaky and louder than a bomb in the silence. It’s so fragile, this moment, and Louis knows he’s going to fuck it up. Inevitably, there’s no way to fix it. He and Nick have never been able to sustain a level of any kind of normalcy, it’s always fractured by biting words and pointed comments.

This state of quiet, it can’t last. And it feels like way too much. Like everything has caved in on them in the space of ten seconds, and Louis doesn’t know what he was thinking with that one gesture, but it’s not something he has the capability or desire to deal with right now. So, he turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him.

In the morning, when he finally mans up enough to actually get out of bed and face Nick, who he can hear crooning Britney Spears in the living room, he walks into Harry with a pillow case tied around his head and strutting down the hallway. He tries to ignore the love bite blooming on Harry’s collarbone.

He definitely doesn’t think about whether or Nick has one in the same place. He also ignores the hot, curling feeling in his stomach at the suggestion that Nick might do.

‘Haz, what the fuck?’

‘I’m practicing my wedding walk.’

‘You’re not gonna be the bride love, you can’t wear a veil.’

‘That is exactly what Nick said, but I say to you Louis Tomlinson, that that is assuming I will be following gender normative stereotypes at my wedding.’

‘And you won’t?’

‘Well, I don’t know right now, do I?’

‘Of course not.’

Louis rolls his eyes as he walks away, and sets his eyes firmly on the couch. He walks in steady steps over to the couch and falls onto it, resting his head against the arm rest and frowning at the telly. It’s not on. Louis narrows his eyes at it and thinks firmly of turning it on, hoping that just this once, like Matilda, it’ll turn on by itself.

It doesn’t.

He’s just trying to figure out if he can think the alphabet backwards, in between ignoring the Ariana Grande song that’s playing on a loop in his head whilst tugging on his shoes in order to run and try and get the bus to uni, when a very hot object is pressed against his cheek.

‘Fucking ow.’ He yelps, glaring at Nick. ‘Seriously?’

Nick doesn’t look him in the eye, but just gently moves the cup of tea closer to Louis. Louis’ breath catches in his throat. He’d kinda been hoping that the two of them would just completely ignore the night entirely, and resort back to their normal bickering, but it doesn’t seem that way.

Louis looks down at the tea and then back up at Nick. His hair looks even more thoroughly wrecked than it did the night before and his lips are slightly chapped and swollen. Harry’s singing sex bomb in his bedroom and Louis feels slightly sick.

‘Didn’t want one.’ Louis says harshly, clenching his fists. He wants Nick to retaliate. He wants him to fight back.

‘I’ll just leave it there then,’ Nick replies quietly and places the tea onto the same coffee table. He walks away after that, singing out Harry’s name.

Louis swallows tightly and clenches his jaw. He sits alone in the living room for the next hour, listening to the sounds of Nick and Harry giggling. The tea goes cold.

-

Of all things, that moment is what breaks it all apart. For all the whining and bitching Louis did, he’d grown comfortable in the situation that had developed: Harry and Nick had infrequent, unromantic sex- but still remained best friends and spent stupid amounts of time together being generally dumb and totally fucking annoying. Harry still loved Louis best(as demonstrated by how he’d still crawl into bed with Louis, on the nights when Nick was fuck knows where, and curl around him like an octopus, cooing softly into his ear until Louis fell back asleep.) And Nick and Louis vehemently hated each other, with little to no loop hole or plot twist to that particular relationship. Except now, a stupid cup of tea had fucked it all up.

Louis had ripped up the line, unintentionally, and the pair of them no longer had any idea how to act around each other.

On days when Louis is gearing up for a fight, dislike and anger and jealousy _burning_ through his veins, Nick’s almost docile- weary of Louis’ insults and sometimes even flinching like Louis had physically harmed him. In return, on the days when Nick is his loudest, most judgemental, most fucking hipsterish- Louis is his most exhausted. Jibes that were so easy to make nestled in Louis’ throat every time Nick so much as looked at _something_ , but the familiar sleepy fearfulness was always at its height on these days and so instead he would slump back against Zayn or Harry and stare balefully at Nick.

Louis’ favourite part of these days happened to be the intense paranoia it would incite in Nick whenever Louis failed to respond to any of his more obvious obnoxious comments.

But the weird fucking vibe that surrounded them didn’t let up for days. Even Niall noticed. So Louis spent his time panicking about work, playing fifa with Harry on nights when Nick wasn’t around, avoiding Nick and then staring at him endlessly if they were in the same room together for any space of time. Like he was some twelve year old kid with his first crush.

It was pathetic and dumb, and so out of his control that Louis honestly didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like he liked Nick. Because Nick pissed him off and they were so so different, and Nick was annoying and he pissed him off and a whole other load of logical and understandable reasons, namely that, he pissed him off.

And he was Harry’s. Number fucking one on top of the list- Nick was Harry’s.

-

‘So you must do a lot of reading then? Like for your course?’

‘Yes Nicholas.’

‘Lot of Shakespeare?’

‘A bit.’

‘Like it?’

‘Hmm. There’s one like I like a lot, in um, Much Ado, I think. About, well, won’t really make sense, but just about a dog and a crow and declarations of love. Think that line’s proper good.’

‘How’s it go?’

‘I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow-’

‘What the bloody fuck?’

‘-than a man swear he loves me.’

‘Bit confusing, innit.’

‘Kudos to the author. I personally think it’s fucking brill.’

‘You mean Shakespeare?’

‘Yes.’

‘I hated Shakespeare, quite a bit actually.’

‘Well fuck you then.’

The catch this time is, they both smile.

-

‘Fuck, Lou. Fuck. Fuck,’ Zayn groans, tilting his head back against the bathroom wall. The smell of the deodorant Louis had put on like twenty minutes ago was still lingering thick in the air, and Louis swears he can taste it in the back of his throat. Behind Zayn’s cock of course.

He pulls his mouth off with a pornographic pop and licks around the head of Zayn’s dick, humming smugly when Zayn let out another moan. Zayn clumsily thumbs along Louis’ cheek, muttering a weak ‘fuck’ as Louis ducks down to take his cock deeper into his mouth, sucking hard like Zayn likes.

Zayn, of course, looks fucking ridiculously hot at all points during sex, but when he’s getting head, he manages to look even more gorgeous and Louis feels a weird kind of urge to smile proudly at how pretty his best friend looks.

‘So good babe,’ Zayn grunts, shifting against the bathroom sink he’s pressed up against, his hand gripping the bowl tightly. His hips punch forward every now and then, shifting closer in incremental little snaps as Louis bobs his head up and down. ‘So fucking good at this,’

Louis preens over the compliment, and focuses on swallowing Zayn all the way down to the back of his throat whilst reminding himself to fucking breathe through his nose.

He and Zayn have been doing this for long enough that they each other’s little sex quirks down pretty well. And Zayn’s a bit of a weird dude, so it figures that what gets him off is a bit weird as well. Like, Louis knows that if he slides his hands down the back of Zayn’s thighs to meet the stretch of skin directly at the back of his knees, and if he curls he fingers just so and then gently presses down…

And just like that Zayn lets out a very loud moan and shoots down the back of Louis’ throat. Louis dribbles a little down his cheek in his haste to swallow it all and smirks. Predictable as fuck. Zayn lazily curls a hand into the back of Louis’ hair and smiles softly, looking a lot less grouchy then when he had arrived to the flat.

He’d been panicked, freaking out about the fact that Louis had managed to invite Liam to the club they were all heading to tonight when he’d seen him in the local Tesco. And a grumpy Zayn was not fun to deal with. So Louis had listened to him bitch and worry for approximately two minutes before dragging him back to the bathroom and letting Harry deal with Nick and Niall’s arrival. Nothing couldn’t be eased, if not solved, with a good blowjob.

And Louis was spectacular at giving head.

After cleaning themselves back up, Louis saunters out of the bathroom and down towards the living room, a smug smile on his lips and a dopey as fuck Zayn trailing behind him. He swings the living room door open and his grin widens at the sight in front of him.

Niall has a bottle of beer pressed against his lips, a delighted laugh escaping him when Louis catches his eye and winks. Harry watches the pair with nonchalance as he strokes his forefinger tenderly down the length of a banana and Nick…

Well. Nick stares at Louis in a way that makes Louis want to crawl into his lap and arch his neck back for Nick to kiss. And isn’t that little discovery a bitch. Not that discovery is really the right word, Louis’ pretty sure that he’s been ignoring his feelings for a while, he just isn’t exactly prepared to deal with them right this fucking minute.

It makes his chest ache a little and he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

When he zones back into the room, Nick is still staring at him whilst Niall, Zayn and Harry have occupied themselves with some kind of ritualistic drinking game that Louis’ fairly certain they’re making up as they go along. Louis arches an eyebrow and slowly presses his tongue into his right cheek as he stares back.

Nick splutters with laughter and a fucking stupid burst of pleasure spikes in Louis’ throat. He ducks his head to avoid catching his eye whilst he tries to school his features into something other than the half-smile he couldn’t quite control.

After that, Louis gives over to frankly, the stupid amounts of alcohol he and the lads have bought. He taps out a shoddily written message to his mum, he hasn’t contacted her in so long, and tucks his phone back into his pocet.

Over the course of the night, he finds himself catching Nick’s eye more often than not, and just before they head out he’s internally screaming at himself to not glance in Nick’s direction.

The taxi to the nearest club was fun, in the way that only drunken car rides can be. He was sat in the front of the six seater taxi with Niall on one side and Zayn on the other, Harry and Nick relegated to the back so that no one had to witness the drunken snogs.

It was only when they were getting out of the car, and the cold air hit, that Louis realised just how fucked he was. He sways a little on his feet, his vision blurring round the edges when a warm hand presses against the small of his back.

‘Alright love?’ Shit, Nick’s voice is low. Is it always that low or is it just cos he’d been drinking? He turns his head to the left slightly and looks up, realising just at the last minute just how much fucking taller Nick is. He feels completely caged in. His mouth drops open a little, but it’s like he just can’t get the words out, not when Nick is staring at him so intently, and really there isn’t a lot of space between them, and if Louis just shuffles a little bit closer…

‘Louuuuuu,’ Harry croons from inside the taxi still. ‘Louis Louuuuu’

‘Fuck,’ Louis spits out, falling away from Nick. He uses the taxi as leverage to push away from the car, away from Nick, fuck, and into the club.

It’s hard to remember what happens exactly when he’s inside the club, but he’s fully aware of stumbling into the toilet and dry retching into the sink. He had been going to kiss Nick. Or at the very least lean into Nick like he was gagging for it.

Louis runs a hand down his face, his hands shaky. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He fucks up a lot, he knows that, he is more aware than anyone of how much he lets people down, but he can’t with Harry. Not when his best mate is so precious to him, and Nick is… fucking nothing. Fucking nothing in comparison.

Louis wanders out of the loo and back down to the bar, stopping dead in his tracks when he see’s Zayn and Liam almost violently kissing at the bar. He stops and thinks _I had his dick in my mouth earlier._

And then he actually looks at Zayn, and it’s like the moments gone. Cos Zayn looks so so into it. Not that Liam isn’t clearly reciprocating, and happily, but Zayn looks almost desperate in his kisses, like he’s been so depraved for so long.

Which is fair enough, Louis thinks, he sort of has been.

‘Well in mate,’ he whispers. Louis stands at the bar for a while, chatting drunkenly to the bartender and watching in sort of horrified amazement as Liam peppers little, kitten kisses all over Zayn’s face, which is something Louis didn’t think Zayn would ever allow, but hey ho, fools in love right?

He’s just spit a bit of his drink out at the flustered look on Liam’s face whilst Zayn whispers what Louis imagines to be dirty, obscene things in his ear, when a very tall, very hot body presses against his.

‘Thought that was your boytoy?’ Nick slurs drunkenly and Louis tries very very hard not to physically freeze up. He can’t look at Nick, he’s drunk, but he’s not drunk enough to know that in order to not royally screw everything up, he cannot look at Nick.

So he downs another shot and shakes his head, the fuzziness in his head so thick now that he’s actually trying to hold a proper conversation again. ‘Nah. Never like that with me and him.’

‘Bit jealous that he went for brawn over brain though?’ Nick asks, his fingers brushes along the inside of Louis’ arm and Louis really really can’t.

‘Fuck off,’ he murmurs and moves away, trying to slide through a couple in order to escape. Nick’s fingers wrap around his arm and yank him back, and Louis doesn’t even try to fight it, he just stares right up at Nick.

‘Hey, no, wait. I was only teasing. I’m sorry. Feels like I can never stop being a right prat around you.’

Louis can’t stop staring at his lips, which are all shiny and a bit wet from the stupidly bright cocktails he’s been flouncing around with all night. Louis stares and almost crumples as it hits him straight in the chest how attracted he is to the man in front of him.

He’d never admit it, would rather be tortured than speak about it, but his knees feel suddenly a lot weaker from how much he wants wants wants to touch. He feels like he _needs_ to touch Nick right the fuck now, like he’d die if he didn’t, and he’s hurtling towards inappropriately drunk and he’s gonna blame the shit out of that for why he reaches up and pushes a bit of Nick’s hair off his face, that’s wilted from his quiff.

And in that little action, everything goes very still around. The dirty club music and sticky, alcohol drenched people still thrum around them, but it’s all been muted in Louis’ head, everything’s been turned right right down. Louis watches as Nick’s face literally softens and he really can’t breathe as Nick catches his wrist when it falls down from his hair.

Nick leans in very slowly, pupils blown wide. ‘Dance with me.’

Louis shakes his head immediately. He instantly tries to conjure up pictures of Harry hurt, Harry crying, Harry in endless amounts of pain because he knows that’s where this’ll go. This thing he’s got with Nick, it’s only ever gonna end up hurting Haz, and Louis’ so desperately trying to rationalise it but Nick is not helping in the slightest because he is still so close and Louis just wants to kiss him so badly.

‘Lou, dance with me.’

It’s the ‘Lou’ that does it, and somehow Nick manages to shift them both onto the dance floor, right in the middle of everyone and they’re pressed so close together that Louis doesn’t want to take a breath at the wrong time in case everything shatters around them.

Louis can feel himself shaking from it all, and it’s hot in the pit of his stomach, hot like nothing he’s every experienced before. His mouth is so dry when he swallows, glancing away from Nick and down to his hands, where he’s pretty sure his nails are literally cutting into his palms to keep him from just reaching out and touching.

He tilts his head back a little to look back at Nick as they start dancing, and it’s all completely fucking gone to bollocks, because he’s pretty sure that was Harry he saw out of the corner of his eye, watching the pair of them dance from the corner of the club before he was gone with a flash of light. He closes his eyes to it all- just for a minute, because he’s sure Harry’ll be over here in a minute, sliding in between their bodies and kissing Nick right on the mouth as he is want to do, as he is _allowed_ to do.

And Louis wasn’t ever sure of anything about this, anything at all, but he’s quite sure that watching that might in fact, break him.

So he shuts his eyes and ignores the flush that creeps up his neck when Nick sways even closer to him, their hips pressing together. Fuck, Louis’ hard and there is no way in the fucking world that Nick can’t feel it, and it’s all the more mortifying and all the more hot because Nick’s hard too.

He definitely is, Louis can feel it, pressed against his thigh and without thinking, without even opening his eyes, he gasps.

‘God, Lou, don’t,’ Nick groans, one of his long arms winding around Louis’ waist, his large fingers splayed across, _fuck_ , the entirety of Louis’ back. But Louis just can’t stop it.

Briefly, fucking weirdly, he thinks of Miley Cyrus for a moment and it makes him snigger. Nick’s fingers press harder into his back at the noise and Louis opens his eyes, blinking dumbly at Nick for a few seconds.

It’s all so stupid. It’s all so fucking stupid.

Because now they’re watching each other, staring right at each other and Louis really can’t bring himself to look away, thinks that even if he knew without a doubt that Harry was stood right next to him, he’d still have to keep watching.

He can feel himself moving closer to Nick, knows that he’s been mirrored and for every inch forwards he shuffles, Nick closes in just as much until suddenly, stupidly, inevitably, they’re so close that their lips are almost touching and Louis can feel each and every breath Nick inhales and exhales, and it would be easy, too easy, to just lean forward just a little bit and press his mouth against Nick’s own.

If anything, that’s what is so terrifying to Louis, because there is no way they can pretend that this wasn’t pre-meditated, that they hadn’t been leading up to this from the moment Louis pushed Nick’s stupid quiff of his forehead this was exactly where they were heading.

And that in itself is so wrong, but Louis just wants so much he’s not even sure how he can breathe from it and even though Harry is the most wonderful boy to Louis, he really can’t stop himself because Nick is ridiculous and tall and so stupidly frustrating that Louis wants to scream, and just a little bit perfect. Louis could just kiss him once and have it done with.

It’d be so easy, he thinks, to just lean in and kiss him.

‘Lads!’ Zayn cries, grabbing Louis’ shoulder and spinning him round. Zayn’s face is blank. Zayn’s face is quite often blank but this is a blank that means that he’s purposefully watching his expression.

God, Louis wants to cry.

Liam’s stood behind Zayn’s shoulder and is glaring, fucking glaring at Nick like he’s the anti-christ or something, and it all exploded. All of it, just completely shattered. Just like Louis fucking knew he would.

He steps out Nick’s arms and straight into Zayn’s, mumbling into his neck.

‘Take me home Zayn, sorry, I can’t be here, I don’t wanna be here…’

Zayn straightens and Louis watches as he grasps Liam’s hand with one hand and wraps his free arm around Louis’ shoulder, holding him closer to his chest.

‘Think we’re gonna take off, alright bro?’ Zayn not so much asks as tells. Nick nods, body completely still. Louis really wants to kiss him. ‘Tell Haz we’ve left yeah?’

‘Course,’ Nick says. ‘Uh, bye Lou- Louis. Bye.’

He turns his back and leaves.

Zayn manages to manoeuvre all three of them out of the club and into the street whilst Liam purposefully walks to the nearest taxi and leans his head into the passenger window to talk to the taxi driver.

‘Babes,’ Zayn says gently, running his hand through Louis’ hair. ‘Think you might have fucked up a bit hmm?’

Louis groans and promptly vomits all over the side of the street.

-

All he knows when he gets home, is that he’s purposefully mean to Liam at least three times, and still all Liam does is frown in a worried kind of way and feed him ice cream.

After the third attempt, Louis gives up and falls onto Liam’s shoulder, not crying but snuffling a little into his sleeve of plaid- plaid really?- as he does.

‘You’re well nice Payno,’ he murmurs.

‘I’m not,’ Liam replies. ‘Not really.’

‘Think I approve Zayn.’

‘Wow, proper glad Lou,’ Zayn says dryly, lightening up a cigarette.

Louis doesn’t remember anything after that. In the morning, Zayn and Liam are gone but Harry pulls him into the tightest hug and kisses his cheek, surprisingly gentle.

-

It’s one in the morning and Louis is fighting sleep like a fucking champ, if he does say so himself. Haz is out doing God knows what, and the next episode of Gogglebox is about to start on the telly. The flat is quiet though and Louis finds himself pausing the T.V. every five seconds to double check that _wasn’t_ his name he’d heard whispered in the darkness.

He’d placed a rickety kitchen chair in front of his bedroom door and was resolutely ignoring the thrum of fear pounding underneath his skin. He’s just about to press play when someone knocks at the door. Three fucking times. He sighs dramatically and pushes himself off the sofa, grabbing the cricket bat by the door that he and Harry keep there for axe murderers, burglars and Harry’s crazy ex’s.

He opens the door with a feeble ‘Ahhh’ and thrusts the bat in front of him.

‘What the hell.’ Nick states blandly, not looking even remotely scared which is a little bit insulting, Louis thinks. He drops his arm and the bat hits his thigh. Nick looks good, fuck. He hasn’t seen him in ages. Louis clears his throat angrily.

‘What exactly were you doing?’ Nick asks.

‘It’s one in the morning.’

‘So?’

Louis arches an eyebrow. ‘You could have been an axe murder.’

‘And you thought a cricket bat would have stopped me.’ Nick replies, looking entirely unimpressed. Louis opens his mouth to reply with an extremely witty yet thought-provoking response when he yawns instead.

‘Charming.’ Nick says and pulls his phone from his jacket pocket.

‘Haz isn’t here,’ Louis informs him and wanders back into the living room, falling back onto the sofa. Looking up, he sees that Nick’s still staring at him from the doorway.

‘Nicholas,’ Louis barks and fuck if there isn’t a person in this world who annoys him more Nick.

‘Jesus, what?’ Nick shuffles by the door, his posture straightening and a faint tinge of colour on his cheeks.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Haz isn’t here.’

‘So?’

‘So what?’

Louis wants to rip his hair out. And then maybe Nick’s after. ‘For fucks sake. So… you can leave now. Harry isn’t here.’

Nick blinks and then grins. ‘Nope, don’t think I will, ta.’

Louis is way too tired for this. Nick steps into the flat and shuts the door behind him, toeing off his stupid brown boots. Louis watches the curve of his back as he takes off his jacket and folds it over one arm.

‘Tea?’ Nick’s already loping into the kitchen as he asks, and all Louis can do is stare after him, a little dumbfounded.

Nick being here, in his apartment with him when Harry’s not here, makes Louis’ chest ache a little.

But the way he sees it, there are two options here. He could bitch and moan and be a rude little shit in order to get Nick to leave, or he could preserve that energy and get Nick to bring him endless cups of tea and maybe some toast as well.

He refuses to let this be awkward. He hasn’t even thought about that night at the club once, not at all. And if he’s ended up wanking himself off to memories of being pressed quite that close to Nick, then nobody has to know but himself. So, Nick can stay in his empty flat at one in the morning because Louis was the fucking master of being chill. And not awkward.

‘Louis?’ Nick’s voice calls from the kitchen.

‘Nicholas.’

‘There’s a bread fort in the kitchen.’

‘Yes.’

‘A fort… made of bread.’

‘Yes.’

‘A bread fort is needed because…’

‘To protect the microwave.’

‘To protect the… right. Of course.’

Louis smushes his face into a sofa pillow and tries to stop smiling. Nick meanders back in later, holding Louis’ tea out to him and dropping into the sofa next to him. For a while, it’s dead silent. And not at all awkward.

Louis tries desperately hard to not think about how close they are. Or about the night at the club.

‘Right then,’ Nick says after a while. ‘What are we watching?’

‘Gogglebox.’

‘No.’

‘Um yes.’

‘I refuse.’

‘Why?’

‘I will not lower myself to that level,’

Louis rolls his eyes ‘Oh well, excuse me, queen of boring telly over here. Gogglebox’s sick.’

Nick eyes the television suspiciously and Louis does try really really hard not to laugh.

‘It’s not exactly trying television Nicholas, no need to look someone’s forcing you to watch a shark giving birth.’

Nick smirks and glances over to him. ‘You do talk a great deal of shit, darling.’

 _Darling_. Louis’ breath, does not, in the slightest way, catch.

‘Hmm, not sure you could handle my intellect at its best,’ he replies smugly, settling down more comfortably into the cushion.

‘God. You are a lot of work aren’t you?’ Nick asks, sounding a little bit awed.

Louis smiles, only a little bit ‘Shush now, telly’s on.’

He hits play. And from Gogglebox it’s The Great British Bake Off to old re-runs of Mock The Week that Nick turns his nose up at to some weird old documentary about these two twins who both went mad and ran across the motorway to, well, to fucking fear really.

Because Louis is definitely sure he fell asleep, and in his dream, he’d been sat in a wooden house deep in the forest. And Louis hadn’t known how this house was dodgy, he’d just known. He was talking to a little old lady who kept mumbling about the flowers, and a rabbit, sat right across the table from him, who kept shifting in his sleep.

After an amount of time had passed, the rabbit had looked Louis directly in the eye and said. ‘Louis, he’s here.’

And when Louis had turned his head to the left, the fox faced man had been pressed right up against the window, the biggest smile on his smile.

Louis had woken up, he’s not sure how long ago, with his face pressed so tightly against Nick’s chest and Nick’s arm around his shoulders, and their legs tangled together and the fucking fox man stood at the end of the sofa, he’s sure of it.

He can’t breathe. And he knows he can’t breathe because he’s inhaling air quicker than he’s exhaling and his entire body is shaking from how scared he is.

‘Lou?’ Nick’s voice is drenched in sleep, slightly raspy and a bit deeper than normal.

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ Louis stutters out, clenching his eyes even tighter shut. He can feel the sweat trickling down his back, and it must be so so disgusting but he can’t move. Not while the fox faced man is there.

He is so terrified that he doesn’t know what to do. He never knows what to do.

‘Louis what’s-’ Nick starts, but Louis can’t, he can’t.

‘Shut the fuck up, please,’ he begs. ‘He’ll hear you, oh God, he’s right there. Nick be quiet, please, just fuck, fuck, fuck.’

Nick’s hand presses even firmer against Louis’ arm, like he’s holding Louis closer to him. ‘Love, are you having a nightmare? Are, are you scared?’

Louis moans against Nick’s chest and shakes even harder, because Nick needs to stop fucking talking or Louis’ going to die, he knows he is. The fox man will get him, he’ll come even closer, and he might even touch Louis and Louis’ll die then. He knows he will. He knows, oh God.

‘Darling, it’s okay,’ Nick breathes into Louis’ hair, and for a second, a beautiful second, it all seems to stop. ‘I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe.’

A car alarm goes off directly outside the flat and Louis jumps up like he’s been shot, staring down at Nick with wide eyes before he glances around the living room. The fucking empty living room.

_I’ll keep you safe._

‘You should leave,’ Louis says.

Nick sighs and slumps forward, dropping his head to his hands. ‘Don’t do this.’

‘You need to leave.’

‘Why? Cos you had a-’

‘Nick, _please_.’ Louis hisses and Nick looks up at him, slightly dumbfounded. ‘Please, just go. Get the fuck out, please.’

Nick continues to stare. Then he deflates, shoulders slumping forward like Louis’ just, really hurt him.

‘Okay, alright love. I’m going.’

It doesn’t take him long to pull on his boots and open the door to Louis’ flat.

‘Louis, you have my… you have my number yeah? In case, of, well anything really.’

Louis nods, still standing from the sofa with the sleeves of his jumper pulled down over his fists.

‘See you Lou,’

‘Bye Nick.’

The door shuts and Louis immediately pulls out his phone, scrolling through his contacts to get to his mum. He shakily presses on the call button and spends the next hour sobbing to her down the phone, letting her gentle voice wash away his fears.

Even then, Louis doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

-

Louis’s stuck in his room on the day Harry and Nick break up. They come in arguing and Louis really tries not to listen in, even shoving his headphones into his ears, but he’s not actually that fucking good of a person and his curiosity gets the better of him.

He hasn’t spoken to Nick in three weeks, picking up a couple more shifts at work or spending even more time at the university library in order to avoid having to be at the flat. He feels humiliated and scared because it feels like every moment they spend together, they topple closer to the edge of falling off a cliff and Louis isn’t sure how well he’d be able to handle the landing.

‘What part of this isn’t working?’

‘What part of it is, Jesus Nick.’

‘I just… fuck Haz. Why didn’t you just talk to me?’ Nick sounds desperate. Louis, very suddenly, wants to cry.

‘About what?’ Harry laughs, but it’s empty. It’s an awful sound coming from someone normally so light and rich and happy. ‘There was nothing to say.’

‘We could have tried to…’

Fuck, Louis really feels like he might cry. He can’t leave the room, knows he takes one step outside and they’ll know he was here, but hearing Nick try and mend or fix or fucking re-start what he has with Harry is like someone gutting him.

‘Tried to what?’ Harry asks.

‘Fix it.’

‘Not when it was broken from the start Grimmy.’

‘Fuck… fuck. So, what, are you seeing him?’

‘I dunno, like, hopefully. If you’re, like, okay with it?’

‘What the fuck Haz. No, of course I’m not okay with it.’ Nick sounds so angry, and so hurt and Louis is finding it so hard to breathe. He’d thought it was just sex for Nick, for Harry, for fucking both of them but everything, fucking everything that Nick is saying suggests otherwise. That maybe Louis was just hopeful.

Louis’ so fucking stupid. He’s such an idiot.

‘Why not?’ Harry asks.

‘What is that supposed to mean? Harry, you must know why.’

‘Why would you not be okay with it?’ Harry repeats.

Louis’ never hated something so much in his life, as he hates this flat right now. As much as he hates himself from getting home from uni early. As much as he hates everything.

‘Harry. We’ve been going out for six months.’ Nick states blandly.

‘No, we fucking haven’t.’ Shit, Harry sounds angry now. It’s enough to put Louis on shaky legs and reach for the door handle before he realises he’d have to go out there and see Nick. Maybe even watch him beg Harry to take him back.

And Louis isn’t fucking strong enough for that.

‘We’ve been having sex, not even for that long, I don’t think. Nick, I do love you, you know I do. As my friends. One of my best friends.’

‘Harry-’

‘I see the way you look at each other, you know.’ Harry interrupts.

There’s dead silence. Louis doesn’t even remember how to breathe. When Nick speaks, his voice breaks.

‘No Haz.’

‘The way you look at him-’

‘Harry.’

‘Like he’s… like he sparks every part of you awake.’

‘Please don’t.’

‘He looks at you like you’re safety.’

Louis falls against the door, his knees feel so weak and his hands are shaking so badly and he doesn’t think he can bear to hear another word out of Nick’s mouth.

‘Fuck, Harry.’ Nick sounds like he’s crying. ‘Fuck you.’

Louis bolts out the room at that, letting his door slam shut behind him. When he gets to the living room, with both Nick and Harry staring at him like he’s a moron, he realises he had absolutely no plan for what he was going to say.

‘Shit.’ He exhales.

‘Louis,’ he hears Nick say and sweeps his fringe across his forehead.

‘I think you should go.’

Nick stares at him.

‘What?’

‘I really think you should go Grimmy,’ he repeats. Never in his life, has he called Nick ‘Grimmy’. That’s always been Harry’s and random people that call Nick to be on the radio and all of Nick’s douchey friends. Never Louis.

‘Are you fucking serious-’

‘What part of fucking leave do you not understand?’ Louis explodes, his hands shaking violently from how fucking desperate he is for Nick to just _go_.  ‘Get the fuck out!’

Nick slams the door on his way out because he’s an attention seeker and a drama queen and Louis is fairly certain he is more in love with Nick that he’s ever been with anybody in his entire life. The flat is almost scarily quiet.

‘Louis-’ Harry starts and Louis turns to look at him, meeting his eye for what feels like the first time in months.

‘I’m so tired Haz,’ he replies and when Harry opens his arms, Louis falls into them without question.

‘I’m sorry you broke up,’ Louis mumbles.

‘It’s alright. I was the one breaking up,’ Harry replies.

‘Doesn’t mean you can’t be sad,’ Louis says and feels Harry hum against his cheek.

After what feels like hours of being tucked up tight against Harry’s chest, Harry nuzzles the top of his head and whispers.

‘Knowing Nick I think he’s probably still in the stairwell, if you know, or whatever.’

Louis pulls away to look at him. ‘What do you want Haz?’

Harry smiles, and shit he looks just as tired as Louis feels. ‘Just for you to be happy, Lou. Only ever that.’

Louis stares at him for a bit. ‘You’re such a good person do you know that?’

When Harry laughs, it’s dry and hollow and Louis immediately hates the sound of it. ‘I was cheating on Nick babe. I’m not, I don’t think I can use that word anymore.’

Louis doesn’t know what to say to that, so he rises onto his tiptoes and presses a dry kiss to his friends cheek before practically running out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind him. Harry’s right, Nick is in fact still at the bottom of the stairwell, his phone tight in his hand and his quiff completely fucked up.

‘Nick.’ Louis says, bolting down the stair with his arm outstretched to… he doesn’t know exactly. The minute Nick looks up and see’s him his eyes harden and reaches out to grab Louis’ wrist, yanking him down the last few steps and as close to Nick’s body as he can get.

‘Fuck,’ Louis cries but it’s muffled against Nick’s lips because suddenly they’re kissing.

And shit, it’s angry. Nick’s unforgiving as he back Louis up against the grimy wall, his fingers still tight around Louis’ wrist. He bites and sucks at Louis’ bottom lip, never once allowing the kiss to soften, and Louis can’t, literally cannot breathe from it.

He’s panting by the time Nick moves his lips away from Louis’ mouth to suck kisses along his jaw, biting at the soft skin of his neck.

‘Don’t you fucking dare act like I broke your heart Louis,’ he snarls out and Louis just freezes. Because fuck. He hasn’t heard that tone from Nick in so long. That’s his ‘I-do-actually-hate-you’ voice that was the only voice Louis ever heard at the beginning of Nick’s relationship with Harry.

‘What the fuck?’ He gasps out and Nick presses in closer.

‘Oh sorry, did I fucking hurt your feelings when I was breaking up with my boyfriend of six months? Are you that much of an attention seeking knob that you had to feel involved, even then?’ Nick replies and Louis feels his entire body wince at the words.

Nick’s still sucking at his neck but Louis wonders if this is more in punishment, if Nick’s blaming Louis for the break up with Harry.

‘Get the fuck off me, dickhead,’ Louis barks out, pushing at Nick with everything he has. Nick looks surprised at the contact, almost ashamed as Louis adjusts his shirt from where it had rucked up due to Nick’s manhandling. ‘I never acted like you broke my heart.’

‘What was all that then? ‘Get the fuck out Nick’,’

‘I didn’t… I just. Harry was saying all those things,’

‘You had to get involved. Like I said. God, you really are a prick.’

Louis doesn’t say anything to that. He quite literally is shocked into silence.

‘Louis-’

‘Leave, Nick. Just fuck off,’

When Louis gets back to the flat to find Harry crying on the sofa, he wraps his best friend up in his arms and manages to coo out soft, comforting words.

For the next four nights, Louis doesn’t sleep at all.

-

_I’ll keep you safe._

_I’ll keep you safe._

_I’ll keep you safe._

He thinks maybe it’s those four words that do it. Which is idiotic because it’s been so long since Nick said them. So long since Louis’ even seen Nick, two months since he kicked him out the flat.

And this, it’s the first time in his life that he’s ever wanted anyone for this other than Harry or his mum. It’s the first time he’s ever felt like he’s needed anyone else. Shit, shit, shit.

Right, so, his deal now is that if the phone rings out, not only will Louis still be scared fucking shitless but that tiny, annoying as fuck sliver of hope that just wouldn’t fucking leave after the whole blowout with Nick will finally be crushed. And he’ll lose Nick forever, completely.

And shit, he’s terrified right now but that thought comes a close second.

‘‘Lo?’ Nick’s voice is raspy and tired and Louis doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to have sex with anyone as much as he wants to crawl into Nick’s bed right now.

‘Hello?’ Nick repeats after a couple of seconds, and Louis feels a much more violent need to be sick than he did a couple of seconds ago when he hears a second voice. ‘Nick, babe, who is it?’

There’s a couple more seconds of muted silence and Louis has no idea why he won’t hang the phone up, why the idea of just pressing end call right now seems so horrible in comparison to listening to Nick shuffle around his bed and talk to someone _who clearly spent the night with him_.

‘Louis?’ Nick’s voice is soft. And sort of broken. The pieces are all sharp around the edges, jagged enough to cut but the tone, God, Nick’s tone of voice is just so gentle.

‘Hi, yeah. Um, I. I don’t really-’

‘Who’s Louis?’ The second voice asks and Louis just stops breathing all together.

‘Louis don’t fucking go anywhere.’ Nick’s voice is sharp, demanding. ‘Look, just shut the fuck up for a few seconds yeah?’ Louis has a feeling that wasn’t directed at him since the words were kind of muffled and there was a definite sound of indignation on the other end. ‘Sorry, I just, sorry, really need to take this call.’

The door clicks quietly on Nick’s end and Louis releases the breath he’d been holding the entire time.

‘Louis, what’s going on?’

‘I don’t know how to,’ Louis can’t speak. He can’t say these words. He’s never needed to before, because Haz had always just known but him and Nick, they’re barely even friends and Nick will never just know, so Louis has to tell him but it’s hard, it’s difficult and scary and Louis feels too small. Way too small.

‘I’m really scared,’ Louis whispers. The pavement is cold, and Louis can feel it spreading across his bum as he sits in front of a block of flats, jerking at every silent noise, picturing the fox faced man down the end of the street on a constant four second loop.

‘Sweetheart, where are you?’

Louis can’t breathe. His hands are clenched tightly, he’s gripping onto his mobile phone with such force he’s surprised it hasn’t broken.

‘Louis, love. Can you please tell me where you are? You at home?’

‘I went home with a guy,’ Louis admits quietly. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep but it’s been so long and when I woke up, it was like the walls were closing in Nick, and I couldn’t get out, my head is so fuzzy and I don’t know what to do-’

‘Shh, hey.’ Nick says ‘Listen to me. I’ll come get you alright? Do you know where you are?’

Louis reads Nick the street name that’s lit by a very dim lamp and listens as Nick talks to him whilst trying to locate just where the fuck Louis is on Google streetmap. It’s calming in an odd sort of way, and it’s only when Nick informs him that he’s about five minutes away does Louis realise that Nick sounds awkward as fuck trying to comfort him.

Like the words are just sort oozing out of his mouth and it’s only after a few seconds does he realise that he’s not even saying words anymore he’s just sort of softly cooing. Which of course causes a lot of manly coughing and throat clearing.

When the car finally pulls up on the opposite side of the road, Louis practically bolts towards it, throwing himself into the passenger seat.

They’ve been driving for about ten minutes when Louis realises that Nick’s not taking him home. In fact, he has no idea where Nick’s taking him. He glances across to look at Nick, and winces a little at the slight bags under his eyes and the seriously messy hair he’s got going on.

‘Are you not taking me home?’ He asks quietly.

‘Thought you’d fancy a bit of a drive.’

‘Hmm.’

Nick drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

‘Did you have someone over?’

‘No one important.’

‘You just left them?’

‘Ahh, shit.’

‘What?’

‘Forgot to say goodbye.’

Nick’s so ridiculous that Louis laughs.

‘I really need you to tell me what’s going on.’ Nick says after about five more minutes.

‘Why Nicholas, not sure that’s any of your business,’ Louis sniffs, going for haughty and failing by about three hundred million percent.

‘No I’m serious Louis. Tell me what the fuck is going on.’ Nick doesn’t sound angry, but he does sound like if Louis doesn’t at least try, _try_ , to deal with this moment he might throw him the fuck out of the car.

‘I get these nightmares sometimes.’ Louis replies quickly, stumbling over the words in his haste to get them out of his mouth. ‘They’re called night terrors and I’ve had them for as long as I could remember. You used to say that sometimes it felt like Harry wasn’t even in the bed with you at all… it’s cos he wasn’t. He sleeps in my bed most nights, with me, like a guard dog. He helps me with them.’

‘Fuck.’ Nick exhales.

‘I know it sounds dumb-’

‘It doesn’t.’

Louis looks at him then, properly, with narrowed eyes and everything.

‘I don’t need you to lie.’

‘I’m really not. I know you think, shit. Look, I know you don’t like things that you think make you weak, and I can imagine you really do think that these, night terrors make you vulnerable, so I can pretty much guess how much you hate them.’

Louis has no reply to that, and surprisingly Nick doesn’t make him talk. Instead he drives him home, pulling up outside of Louis’ flats.

The air in the car seems to restrict a little, tightening around Louis’ chest and maybe even around Nick’s, just drawing them together.

‘Louis please let me kiss you.’

Louis exhales shakily, and he knows he’s going red. Like a virgin maiden in the fucking whatever time period maidens came from.

His heart is pounding and he has to look at Nick again. He has to.

‘I can’t do that. Not with Harry.’

‘Harry’s with Niall,’ Nick says, almost earnestly and Louis’ heart aches. It actually throbs like a raw wound. ‘I really don’t think he’d care what we get up to.’

‘I care.’

‘You’re just doing this because you’re scared of me.’

‘Nicholas, you are the least intimidating-’

‘Fuck sake, shut up. I mean scared of what I make you feel.’

Louis arches an eyebrow. ‘Oh really? And how do you imagine I make you feel?’

Nick scowls and flops back a little in his seat. ‘Christ, you can be so fucking difficult.’

‘I’m not scared of you.’

‘I don’t believe you. I think you are fucking terrified.’

Nick’s face twists into something desperate and Louis really wants to run his fingers all over the lines that deepen in Nick’s face. ‘I haven’t seen you in two months.’

Louis jolts forwards suddenly, instinctively, like he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. His movements are clumsy and nudges his nose against Nick’s as he presses their mouth together. It’s gentle and chaste, Louis sucking a little on Nick’s top lip before he pulls away.

‘See you in another two, yeah?’ He asks quietly, getting out of the car before waiting for an answer. He doesn’t turn around and he doesn’t hear the sound of the engine.

Louis has no idea how Harry would react. Louis has no idea how he would react, if he ever let himself, do this thing with Nick. He just admitted to the man that infuriates him more than anything else in the world, his most important, his most valuable secret.

And then he kissed him.

He’s not not not a fragile person, he won’t fucking let himself be, and like Nick said, he’s not a fan of anything that makes him weak.

-

Except, it’s not two months until he sees Nick again. It’s barely two weeks. Harry drags Louis along to some guys party, Finchy, or something or someone, and Louis would much much rather be at home right about now.

Niall keeps nudging his shoulder or clapping a hand around his arm, like he thinks these small touches will stop Louis from noticing that he’s at a fucking party he really doesn’t want to be at.

The club is small and kind of crowded and everyone is so excited to see everyone, and Harry’s eyes keep scanning the crowd like he’s looking for someone which is dumb seeing as Niall is stood right the fuck beside him, and recently, Niall’s the only one Harry wants to see anyway.

He briefly entertains the idea of texting Zayn and asking him to come pick him up, but Zayn’s probably fucking Liam, or just staring at him.

‘Mate,’ Louis says loudly, tugging at Harry’s shirt to get his attention. ‘I can’t stay long alright, I’ve got work tomorrow morning and a lecture in the afternoon.’

Harry’s eyes widen. ‘Just stay for a bit longer, please. Please, please, please. We’ve only just got here.’

Louis opens his mouth to retort when Nick is suddenly stood right at Harry’s side, a thunderous expression on his face.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ He asks Louis, his voice clipped and angry. Louis frowns.

‘Um, chilling?’

Nick rolls his eyes. ‘For God’s sake.’

‘Wow. Had a massive change of heart since the last time I saw you then?’ Louis says dryly, ignoring the way his chest is twisting into knots at the sight of Nick.

Nick doesn’t say anything in response, he just grabs Louis’ wrist and drags him away from the main part of the club and to a dingy looking corridor that leads to the club.

‘Don’t be such a caveman Nicholas,’ Louis gripes, yanking his wrist free.

‘Louis. Why are you here?’

‘Why are you so pissed off that I’m here?’

‘Because you fucking distract me alright?!’ Nick basically screams and the sick part of Louis hums in amusement. And just a little bit of pride.

But the rest of him is just as fucked off.

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh for fucks sake-’ Nick groans and moves to turn away.

‘No, no,’ Louis shouts, raising a little onto his toes to try and get Nick’s attention and eyes back on him. He wants to have this fucking fight. ‘I’m Nick bloody Grimshaw and I talk in riddles when I’m pissed off and drunk because God forbid I’m mainstream and just say what I fucking mean when I could be all hipster and-’

Nick’s mouth on his cuts him off. Nick kisses him properly, cupping Louis’ jaw and tilting it back better so that they slot together even better than before, kissing over and over again.

‘I can’t ever stop thinking about you Louis. I think about you when I’m on the radio.’ Nick says suddenly when he pulls away, mouth red and lush and he’s breathless as he speaks. ‘I think about you when I’m talking to my mum. I fucking think about you when I’m putting my shoes on in the morning. I think about you at four in the morning when I can’t sleep. I have never in my life, thought about someone as much as I do you. And sometimes, you know what, it isn’t even good stuff. Once I literally thought about a way I could murder you. But I just can’t stop, ever. I walk into my friend’s party and see you and suddenly I don’t even care that I haven’t said hello to any of my other friends because I all can fucking think about is fucking stupid you. I can’t ever stop my mind from thinking of you.’ Nick looks like he wants to shove the words back into his mouth the minute he finishes speaking and Louis can’t even _breathe_.

Everything has pretty much fallen away, crumbled into the background of this moment. Louis’ like a thousand percent certain an elephant could waltz into the room singing opera and he still wouldn’t notice. He can’t stop staring at Nick. He just looks really fucking beautiful and it makes Louis want so badly.

Right when he opens his mouth to speak, Nick cuts him off by huffing dramatically and saying ‘Though God knows why, you’re such an insufferable prat really-’

Louis launches himself across the short space between them and latches his arms around Nick’s neck, yanking him down and pressing his lips to Nick’s jaw.

‘Lou-’

Louis shakes his head, slowly, deliberately, pressing firm, steady kisses along Nick’s jaw, hands trembling a little at the back of Nick’s neck. He stops just shy of his lips, nudging his nose against Nick’s cheek.

‘Nick,’ he breathe, his lips brushing maddeningly softly against Nick’s own.

‘Alright?’ Nick replies just as gently. Louis kindly ignores the tremor in his voice.

‘You,’ Louis begins quietly. ‘You are an absolute prick for making me wait so long-’

‘Oh shut the fuck up, Lou,’ Nick practically growls, finally finally finally kissing him again. Louis pants a little between kisses as he’s walked backwards into the club wall, one of Nick’s hands cradling the back of his head.

It’s like, everything, and then a little bit more.

Nick’s desperate in his kisses, frantic almost, and Louis matches him for every sweep of tongue and lick and caress. Nick’s teeth dig a little into Louis’ bottom lip and he involuntarily whines, pulling away a little so his head thuds against the wall. Nick’s hands have trailed down to his arse, and he wastes no time in moving to suck wet, open mouthed kisses across Louis’ throat, humming against Louis’ neck like it’s just as heady and fucking hot for him as it is for Louis.

‘Home,’ Nick mumbles against his mouth.

‘Home,’ he hisses when Louis presses his thigh in between Nick’s legs and then rolls his hips up just a little.

‘Home now fucker,’ Nick grunts when Louis tugs him back against his body so they both thud against the wall.

‘Whose home?’ Louis breathes out, groaning because it’s all too much, it’s all too little and Louis can’t think straight as Nick’s hand sneaks up the back of his shirt, skimming along his skin.

‘What the fuck do you mean ‘whose home’? My home you twat,’ Nick grumbles, biting down on Louis’ collarbone which has Louis whining and shifting, his hips rocking in circles against Nick’s own.

‘Well I have a fucking home as well, moron,’

Nick’s hands grab Louis’ arse and yank him in even closer, continuing to kiss along Louis’ jaw whilst Louis tries desperately not to come in his pants.

‘Yes dear, but why would I have called your home home, when clearly my home is what I would consider ‘home’. If I’d wanted to go to yours, _fucking shit Louis,_ I would have said house.’

Louis rolls his eyes, a smile on his lips and slips his hand under Nick’s jean, palming him over the material of his boxers. Nick’s eyes roll back into his head and Louis feels intrinsically _right_ in this moment.

‘Sorry, love, hand slipped.’ He says sweetly, moving his hand as much as he can in Nick’s stupidly tight trousers.

‘Lou,’ Nick groans out. ‘Can’t here,’

Louis smiles at the look on Nick’s face, ignoring his own bordering-on-painful hard on, and continues to squeeze Nick’s dick gently, stroking his hand up and down.

‘Where did you wanna go?’ Louis asks, grinning.

‘Home,’ Nick pants out, dropping his head to Louis’ shoulder in a position that cannot be comfortable.

‘Whose home?’

‘My home or your home. Someone’s home.’

‘You admit my home is a home?’

‘God, Louis, have to stop, feels so good.’

‘Nick…’

‘It’s a home. Your home, my home. Can we fucking please go to a fucking home?’

Louis presses a chaste, sweet kiss to Nick’s lips and tugs his hand out of Nick’s jeans.

‘Course babe.’

Nick groans. ‘I hate you.’

Louis lets Nick press against him as they make their way out of the club, his dick pressed right up against Louis’ bum. Louis’ never felt more safe in his life.

He can’t stop smiling. Endlessly smiling as Nick peppers his neck with kisses as they walk, trusting Louis to guide them out of the club and into the cold, fresh night.

-

‘Stunning décor Nicholas-’

‘Shut up, you knob,’ Nick mumbles, his fingers shaking a little as he tries to tug off Louis’ shirt, walking him backwards presumably towards his bedroom. Louis tugs off his shirt and drops it onto the floor, feeling a strange sense of peace as Nick runs his hands gently over the tattoo along Louis’ chest.

His fingers feel tender, like Louis is something precious he doesn’t want to break, and it just feels so good that Louis smiles, big and happy and wide.

Nick’s face is shadowed in the dark flat, moonlight, unoriginally, being the only source of light in the room. Louis hooks his arms around Nick’s neck, playing with the soft hair at the back of his head.

‘Soft,’ he comments gently and Nick presses another kiss to his mouth, taking his time just licking and biting his way into Louis’ mouth, tugging with his teeth at Louis’ bottom lip.

‘You’re soft,’ Nick replies and Louis’ jaw drops. Nick’s a twat.

‘Are you calling me fat?’ Louis cries, yelping when Nick’s hands grab his arse and haul him up, spreading down the back of his thighs so that Louis wraps his legs around Nick’s waist.

‘I would never love,’ Nick answers, peppering kisses down Louis’ neck. It turns dirty quickly and Louis isn’t really surprised when Nick diverts their course from _bedroom now_ to _fuck against the wall_.

‘Nick,’ Louis gaps, letting his head fall against the wall when Nick’s dick presses in right against his arse. Nick doesn’t look like the strongest of guys, and there is a slight tremble in his arms, but Louis doesn’t feel anything but safe, secure that Nick won’t drop him.

Nick grunts and spreads Louis’ legs a little wider, fitting himself even closer between them. It feels so good that Louis shuts his eyes, threading his fingers through Nick’s hair and fumbling to find his mouth, clumsily kissing his jaw and cheek until Nick turns to meet his lips.

‘Oh God,’ Louis moans, snorting out a laugh. ‘Proper romantic this,’

Nick stops moving, ignoring Louis’ whine of protest and carries Louis away from the wall, dropping him onto the couch and kicking off his shoes to crawl over the top of him, one hand pressed on Louis’ hip and the other resting on the couch arm above Louis’ head.

‘Didn’t know you wanted romantic,’

‘I want this off,’ Louis pants, yanking at Nick’s shirt, when Nick’s hands find his nipples, twisting and tugging them gently.

Nick smirks and unbuttons his top quickly, throwing it somewhere over Louis’ head. He moves then, kissing down Louis’ chest whilst his hands fumble with the button of Louis’ jeans, yanking down the zipper and peeling them off him.

Nick struggles when the jeans get to the ankles, sitting back on his knees between Louis’ legs as his tries to pry the material off Louis’ skin.

‘Well this is nice,’ Louis comments blankly when Nick resorts to full on ripping the jeans off, a faint pink flush on his cheeks.

‘Shut it, you,’ Nick whispers, kissing the tattoo along Louis’ chest. His hand dips beneath Louis’ boxers and grabs his dick firmly, stroking Louis gently back to full hardness. It’s so simple the movement, nothing fancy or overly experienced, but Louis honestly can’t remember ever feeling so good in his life.

‘I want to blow you,’ Nick murmurs into his ear, tugging Louis’ earlobes and _fuck_. Louis arches up into his grip, fucking up a little into Nick’s fist which of course, covers his dick completely.

Nick’s fingers don’t really seem so irrelevant as they once did.

‘Fuck, I want, Nick,’ Louis pants out. Nick presses his lips to Louis’ and shifts down the sofa, mouthing at Louis’ cock through his boxers before he yanks them down and takes Louis into his mouth.

It’s all sort of muddled after that. There’s nothing more than Nick’s hands every fucking where, and his mouth so tight and wet around Louis’ dick and Nick’s humming around his dick, kissing and licking and sucking, and Louis’ pretty sure there’s a remote control digging into his back but nothing has ever felt so fucking good in his life that he just loses himself to it.

After he’s come down Nick’s throat, and kissed away the stupid smug grin on Nick’s face, he grips Nick through his underwear, hand once again constricted by Nick’s stupid jeans but it doesn’t seem to matter too much as Nick grinds against his palm, watching Louis through slightly closed eyes.

Louis arches up a little and wraps his legs around Nick’s back, feeling his soft cock twitch a little at the feeling of Nick’s jeans pressed against him. He kisses along Nick’s cheek until he reaches his hear and whispers to him.

‘Come for me, I really want to see it, God Nick, I want to make you come,’

And that’s it really. He’s not sure he’s ever felt so good in his life.

-

‘Sometimes I dream of a man at the end of my bed.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. He’s got a fox face.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’m like a psychologists wet dream, they all think I’ve been abused.’

‘Do you think you have?’

‘No, they say I might not be able to remember though.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I trust my mum. She says I wasn’t. I just think I’m a little bit screwed up.’

‘I think you’re a little bit perfect.’

Louis kisses him then, slowly and softly, just to show him he can be still. He can experience quiet and like it. He likes Nick so much.

‘I also think you’re a little bit short,’

Louis spends the next twenty minutes trying to push Nick out of bed, and then dragging the duvet down to sleep with him on the floor when he finally manages. It’s gross, because Louis’ own come is painted up his stomach and his arse is wet with lube (Nick insisted on fingering him;

_‘I’ve been dreaming of it for fucking ever Louis,’_

_‘Would have thought you were way too old for wet dreams, old man,’_

_‘Do you want my fingers up your arse or not?’_

_‘Oh God, talk dirty to me, Nick, yeah’_

_‘You annoy me.’_ )but when he puts his head on Nick’s chest he can hear Nick’s heartbeat, and it’s such a good lullaby.  

-

When they tell finally tell Harry, a month in, he grins and pats both of their heads, twice.

Nick looks a little worried and Louis tries very hard not to smile. Harry then proceeds to rub all over Niall’s face with his face, muttering that he wishes that nuzzling was socially acceptable in society.

‘Haz?’ Nick asks. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

Harry turns around and looks at the pair of them. ‘I heard. I wish you every happiness, guys, seriously. Don’t hurt each other, I’ll fuck you both up.’

Niall cackles with laughter and Louis leans back and bites Nick’s chin to get him to smile.

It’s only when Louis’ coming out of his room to get ready to go to the park with the lads that he hears Harry say ‘I really do think you’re good for each other. I think, when he’s staying here without you, he dreams of you, it keeps him safe.’

Louis sleeps through the night on a pretty regular basis. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope it wasn't too much of a disaster. I am on tumblr- thenleavetheband- so come say hello if you wish. Have a really really good day, I hope I didn't waste too much of your time with this.


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